Fundamentals and Applications of Femtosecond Laser Writing of Integrated Optical Circuit

Jason Grenier

The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Photonics)

Abstract:

Femtosecond lasers have given access to nonlinear optical interactions that can be utilized to alter materials in new ways. For optically transparent media, such interactions have opened new possibilities in fabricating three-dimensional micro- and nano-scale structures and for creating refractive index modifications in materials. This talk will survey our group's recent advances in capturing these nonlinear optical interactions to develop laser processes for producing integrated optical waveguides, Bragg Grating devices, edge filters, polarization selective devices and polarization-splitting directional couplers. While the fundamentals of the laser-material interaction mechanisms will be briefly overviewed, the main focus is on explaining the laser-written devices that promise to expand the component toolkit for fabricating highly functional three-dimensional integrated optical circuits for applications in biosensing and optical telecom.

Biography:

Jason Grenier received the Bachelor's and Master's of Applied Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 2003 and 2006, respectively. During this time, Jason acquired two years of industry work experience including internships at Cypress Semiconductor, Nortel Networks, and Photonics Research Ontario. Jason is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Photonics Group in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. His present research interest is using femtosecond laser technology to control and harvest laser interactions to expand the frontiers of three-dimensional micro and nanofabrication for novel lab-on-a-chip application. Jason is presently an NSERC post-graduate scholarship holder and has recently won awards from the SPIE, the Canadian Institute for Photonics Innovation and the Ontario Centres of Excellence. He is the President of the University of Toronto SPIE Student Chapter and a member of the, OSA, and the IEEE Photonics Society. Web:

http://photonics.light.utoronto.ca/laserphotonics/index.html