Efficient and tailored supercontinuum generation using dispersion management. Imagine a laser beam, but not with just one colour, but containing all colours. The light beam thus looks white, somewhat like a search light, except that it is much brighter. We now know how to generate such bright white beams of light, but it is expensive, requiring a small specialized laboratory full of equipment. Through a better understanding, we will make it easier and cheaper to generate these light beams. All k ....Efficient and tailored supercontinuum generation using dispersion management. Imagine a laser beam, but not with just one colour, but containing all colours. The light beam thus looks white, somewhat like a search light, except that it is much brighter. We now know how to generate such bright white beams of light, but it is expensive, requiring a small specialized laboratory full of equipment. Through a better understanding, we will make it easier and cheaper to generate these light beams. All kinds of applications that have been known for years, such as medical imaging and chemical analysis, then suddenly become practical. We anticipate that in the future these bright white light beams will be used on a routine basis in Australian hospitals and industry. Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE180100042
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$621,834.00
Summary
Australian dark matter detector for high mass axions. This project aims to provide the necessary equipment to allow an Australian Dark Matter Axion Haloscope, with significantly increased sensitivity by providing a milliKelvin environment and a 14 T magnet to drive axion-to-photon conversions. Dark matter is a fundamental component of the universe yet the nature of its composition is still unknown. There is growing evidence that it is comprised of axions, a low energy, weakly interacting particl ....Australian dark matter detector for high mass axions. This project aims to provide the necessary equipment to allow an Australian Dark Matter Axion Haloscope, with significantly increased sensitivity by providing a milliKelvin environment and a 14 T magnet to drive axion-to-photon conversions. Dark matter is a fundamental component of the universe yet the nature of its composition is still unknown. There is growing evidence that it is comprised of axions, a low energy, weakly interacting particle. The precision measurement tools developed by this project will have the potential to contribute both to the economy, via commercialisation, and to national security, via future applications to radar, communication and the development of engineered quantum systems.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE110100054
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,230,000.00
Summary
Ground station facility for membership of the atomic clock ensemble in space mission. This is a unique opportunity for Australian membership of a high profile space mission involving atomic clocks on board the International Space Station and in the world's best frequency and time laboratories. The results obtained will lead to a better understanding of the unification of quantum mechanics and relativity as well as aspects of fundamental Earth metrology.
Light-matter interactions in microstructured optical waveguides for nonlinear optical signal processing. The challenge of conceiving and constructing the necessary components and devices for the next generation of lightwave telecommunications systems is a profound one. This issue is urgent as the current operating principles of switches, filters and sources and other devices simply do not allow for the upgrade to the extremely high data transmission speeds that will be required. Using glass opti ....Light-matter interactions in microstructured optical waveguides for nonlinear optical signal processing. The challenge of conceiving and constructing the necessary components and devices for the next generation of lightwave telecommunications systems is a profound one. This issue is urgent as the current operating principles of switches, filters and sources and other devices simply do not allow for the upgrade to the extremely high data transmission speeds that will be required. Using glass optical fibres as the starting point, we will devise, demonstrate and analyze these novel components, leveraging microstructured optical fibre technology and novel fabrication techniques, which are among the most recent developments in optical fibre research.
Read moreRead less
Mechanical stresses in holey fibres. The development of holey fibres constitutes arguably the most exciting development in fibre optics in recent years. We will analyze the mechanical stresses in these fibres, which, together with the optical calculations and associated experiments, will allow us to design novel fibre-based devices. This will allow Nufern to develop new products based on holey fibres.
Centre for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems. The Centre, through a ground-breaking research program, will in the next five years invent and develop a set of revolutionary optical devices and will integrate these devices onto a photonic chip, for the use in the next generation of ultra-high bandwidth optical telecommunications systems. These systems will dramatically improve online services to the Australian community in key areas such as health, education and business connectivity ....Centre for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems. The Centre, through a ground-breaking research program, will in the next five years invent and develop a set of revolutionary optical devices and will integrate these devices onto a photonic chip, for the use in the next generation of ultra-high bandwidth optical telecommunications systems. These systems will dramatically improve online services to the Australian community in key areas such as health, education and business connectivity. Australia's high tech industry will benefit from the commercialisation opportunities arising from the Centre's research, and also from the creation of a pool of highly skilled ICT professionals.Read moreRead less
New error correction strategies for continuous variable quantum key distribution. Quantum key distribution is a completely secure method for two distant parties to share a unique secret key. The aim of this project is to design new algorithms, construction tools and analysis techniques to produce new iterative error correction codes, which will improve the operational distance and performance of quantum key distribution.
Passively switched mid-infrared fibre lasers using saturable absorbers placed internally or externally to the geometry of the fibre. This project will create new pulsed mid-infrared fibre lasers based on original and recently developed passive switching techniques. An original class of fibre laser systems will be shown that is based on the internal placement of saturable absorbers within the optical fibre itself. A configuration such as this will enable the production of very simple pulsed laser ....Passively switched mid-infrared fibre lasers using saturable absorbers placed internally or externally to the geometry of the fibre. This project will create new pulsed mid-infrared fibre lasers based on original and recently developed passive switching techniques. An original class of fibre laser systems will be shown that is based on the internal placement of saturable absorbers within the optical fibre itself. A configuration such as this will enable the production of very simple pulsed laser systems of high efficiency and potentially high power. This will lead into the development of practical pulsed oscillator systems the output of which can be used directly or optically amplified for applications requiring high power.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE0347140
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$208,000.00
Summary
Picosecond optical probing and characterization of infrared and visible devices. The facility consists of a laser to generate short infrared pulses, and an oscilloscope and detectors to measure such pulses. It will be used to characterize and investigate a new generation of novel optical fibre devices and microstructures, which are to form the basis of the next generation of telecommunications systems, and also novel and unique laser types. The research and development of all of these devices ar ....Picosecond optical probing and characterization of infrared and visible devices. The facility consists of a laser to generate short infrared pulses, and an oscilloscope and detectors to measure such pulses. It will be used to characterize and investigate a new generation of novel optical fibre devices and microstructures, which are to form the basis of the next generation of telecommunications systems, and also novel and unique laser types. The research and development of all of these devices are receiving external funding (or are in negotiations therefore). The facility allows for high-speed and high-accuracy data acquisition, which makes it unique in Australia.Read moreRead less
Novel multi-channel and nonlinear Bragg grating devices. High capacity and reliable telecommunications links are essential for many aspects of modern life and work. Optical fibres offer essentially unlimited capacity, but their optimal use requires the transmission of multiple wavelength channels simultaneously. This, in turn, requires the development of special-purpose fibre devices for multiplexing and de-multiplexing these channels, as well as for other optical filtering and switching tasks. ....Novel multi-channel and nonlinear Bragg grating devices. High capacity and reliable telecommunications links are essential for many aspects of modern life and work. Optical fibres offer essentially unlimited capacity, but their optimal use requires the transmission of multiple wavelength channels simultaneously. This, in turn, requires the development of special-purpose fibre devices for multiplexing and de-multiplexing these channels, as well as for other optical filtering and switching tasks. Fibre Bragg gratings are central to many of these devices, and the aim of this project is to develop novel designs for linear and nonlinear Bragg grating devices which may significantly widen the current range of their applications.Read moreRead less