Publications related to Development of Tunable Optical MEMS for Advanced Laser Beam Shaping, Homogenizing and Speckle Reduction

3D diffractive optics for linear interconnects and nonlinear processing

The optical domain presents potential avenues for enhancing both computing and communication due to its inherent properties of bandwidth, parallelism, and energy efficiency. This research focuses on harnessing 3-Dimensional (3D) diffractive optics for nove ...

EPFL2024

A Cavity-Microscope for Quantum Simulations with Locally-Controllable All-to-All Interactions

Nick Jacob Sauerwein

This thesis presents the development, construction, and benchmark of an experimental platform that combines cold fermionic 6Li atoms with locally controllable light-matter interactions. To enable local control, a new device, the cavity-microscope, was crea ...

EPFL2024

Membrane electrode assembly simulation of anion exchange membrane water electrolysis

Jan Van Herle, Zoé Mury, Suhas Nuggehalli Sampathkumar, Khaled Lawand

Anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) offers a green hydrogen production method that eliminates the need for platinum group metals (PGM) as electrocatalysts. This study employs a COMSOL (R) 6.0 model to simulate a 1x1 cm(2) Ni fibre - Raney (R ...

Elsevier2024

Measuring electrical properties in semiconductor devices by pixelated STEM and off-axis electron holography (or convergent beams vs. plane waves)

Victor Carle Adrien Boureau

We demonstrate the use of both pixelated differential phase contrast (DPC) scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and off-axis electron holography (EH) for the measurement of electric fields and assess the advantages and limitations of each techn ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Functionalized Å-scale Pores in Graphene for Carbon Capture

Kuang-Jung Hsu

Single-layer graphene, hosting a high density of functionalized molecular-sieving atom-thick pores, is considered to be an excellent material for gas separation membranes. These functionalized atom-thick pores enable the shortest transport pathway across t ...

EPFL2024

Parametric Wavelength Conversion in Waveguiding Structures: Efficiency, Bandwidth and Polarization

Arman Ayan

Photonics integrated circuits are a promising solution for the growing demands of data transmission and future system-on-chip technologies. Within this context, nonlinear optical interactions offer unique opportunities for all-optical processing, sampling, ...

EPFL2024

From Surfactants to 3D Printing: How Ion-Chelator Pair Interactions Affect the Mechanical Properties of Bioinspired Materials

Gaia De Angelis

The remarkable adaptability observed in marine ecosystems has often inspired researchers when developing new soft materials. The research undertaken in this thesis explores how ion chelator pair interactions influence the mechanical properties of bioinspir ...

EPFL2024

Laser-based manufacturing of freeform glass micro-optics through topological transformation

Samuel Youcef Benketaf

Glass has been the material of choice for making optical elements, in large part due to its intrinsic properties: a temperature-dependent viscosity, which enables shaping the material into a broad variety of functional and artistic glassware. Silica glass ...

EPFL2024

Femtosecond-laser direct-write photoconductive patterns on tellurite glass

Yves Bellouard, Gözden Torun, Anastasia Romashkina

We report the formation of arbitrary photoconductive patterns made of tellurium (Te) nanocrystals by exposing a tellurite (TeO2-based) glass to femtosecond laser pulses. During this process, Te/TeO2-glass nanocomposite interfaces with photoconductive prope ...

American Physical Society (APS)2024

Nonlinear optical diode effect in a magnetic Weyl semimetal

Philip Johannes Walter Moll, Chunyu Guo, Hao Yang

Diode effects are of great interest for both fundamental physics and modern technologies. Electrical diode effects (nonreciprocal transport) have been observed in Weyl systems. Optical diode effects arising from the Weyl fermions have been theoretically co ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Photoinduced Second-Order Nonlinearities in Centrosymmetric Media

Ozan Yakar

The interaction of light and matter enables nonlinear frequency conversion and the creation of coherent currents. The optical control of electric currents is of fundamental relevance and prominent research focus in the last decades. These photocurrents ena ...

EPFL2024

Influence of micro-patterned support properties and interfacial polymerization conditions on performance of patterned thin-film composite membranes

Kumar Varoon Agrawal, Cédric Karel J Van Goethem

Patterned membranes prepared via spray-modified non -solvent induced phase separation (s-NIPS) have successfully shown enhanced fluxes and better fouling control, thanks to the increased surface area and high fluid shear at the membrane/feed interface. The ...

Elsevier2024

Advanced Silicon and SWIR Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes: Design, Simulation, and Characterization

Ekin Kizilkan

Low-level light detection with high spatial and timing accuracy is a growing area of interest by virtue of applications such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR), biomedical imaging, time-resolved Raman spectroscopy, and quantum applications. Single-phot ...

EPFL2024

Exciton migration in two-dimensional materials

Excitons play an essential role in the optical response of two-dimensional materials. These are bound states showing up in the band gaps of many-body systems and are conceived as quasiparticles formed by an electron and a hole. By performing real-time simu ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Advancements in Nanomechanical Characterization and Biomolecular Imaging with Atomic force Microscopy

Veronika Cencen

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a widely used imaging tool for obtaining a variety of information for a range of samples. Although it was initially intended to serve as a method of observing very flat solid surfaces, its use expanded into several other fi ...

EPFL2024

Photothermal spectroscopy on-chip sensor for the measurement of a PMMA film using a silicon nitride micro-ring resonator and an external cavity quantum cascade laser

Simone Iadanza

Laser-based mid-infrared (mid-IR) photothermal spectroscopy (PTS) represents a selective, fast, and sensitive analytical technique. Recent developments in laser design permits the coverage of wider spectral regions in combination with higher power, enablin ...

Walter De Gruyter Gmbh2024

Carbon based printed electrodes for DEAs: study of pad, inkjet, and stencil printing

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Armando Matthieu Walter, Simon Holzer

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) have raised interest due to their remarkable capabilities in various applications, such as soft robotics, haptic feedback systems, and biomedical devices. To harness the full potential of DEAs, the choice of the electr ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

Additively manufactured stretchable zipping electrostatic actuators

Giulio Grasso

The use of soft and stretchable materials allows the development of adaptive robotic systems and human-machine interfaces that are more natural and comfortable to interact with. One of the application fields that benefits the most from these compliant mate ...

EPFL2024

Membrane specificity of the human cholesterol transfer protein STARD4

Charlotte Julie Caroline Gehin

STARD4 regulates cholesterol homeostasis by transferring cholesterol between the plasma membrane and endoplasmic reticulum. The STARD4 structure features a helix-grip fold surrounding a large hydrophobic cavity holding the sterol. Its access is controlled ...

Academic Press Ltd- Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Room-Temperature Quantum Optomechanics and Free-Electron Quantum Optics

Guanhao Huang

Quantum optics studies how photons interact with other forms of matter, the understanding of which was crucial for the development of quantum mechanics as a whole. Starting from the photoelectric effect, the quantum property of light has led to the develop ...

EPFL2024