Publications de Isabelle Dicaire

Exploring the use of native spider silk as an optical fibre for chemical sensing

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

A spider uses up to seven different types of silk, all having specific functions, as building material, weapon and sensory organ to detect the presence of preys on its web. Recently, scientists have put under the limelight the extraordinary properties of t ...

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2018

From Spider Webs to a Biomimetic Optical Fibre Sensor

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

Can we use spider silk threads as natural, biological optical fibre sensors? In this communication, we will see how we can harness the optical properties of spider dragline silk and use it for sensing. ...

2018

Towards a novel "silky" way to detect chemical species using spider threads

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

Silk possesses extraordinary properties that scientists are currently working hard on harnessing. Amongst them, this primeval material has shown early potential of having excellent optical properties. Through a regeneration process, it is possible to obtai ...

2016

Weaving our way towards a new generation of ﬁbre-optic chemical sensors based on spider silk

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

From the spider’s perspective, silk is not only a building material but also a safety net, a weapon and a sensory organ to detect the presence of preys on its web. Indeed, this primeval material has been shaped over hundreds of millions of years by spiders ...

Ieee2016

From spider webs to a fibre-optic chemical sensor

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

From the spider’s perspective, silk is not only a building material but also a safety net, a weapon and a sensory organ to detect the presence of prey on its web. For scientists, dragline silk - directly extracted from spiders - is a tough, biodegradable a ...

2016

Towards a new generation of fibre-optic chemical sensors based on spider silk threads

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

A spider uses up to seven different types of silk, all having specific functions, to build its web. For scientists, native silk - directly extracted from spiders - is a tough, biodegradable and biocompatible thread used mainly for tissue engineering and te ...

Ieee2016

Spider silk: a novel optical fibre for biochemical sensing

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

Whilst being thoroughly used in the textile industry and biomedical sector, silk has not yet been exploited for fibre optics-based sensing although silk fibres directly obtained from spiders can guide light and have shown early promises to being sensitive ...

SPIE2015

Shedding light on the optical properties of spider silk fiber

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

Optical characterisation of a Nephila edulis spider dragline silk is performed. The silk fiber transmits light up to 1400 nm with a propagation loss of ∼9 dB/cm and birefringence of 8×10−3 measured at 1302 nm. ...

IEEE2015

Fabrication of all-fibre gas reference cells for laser frequency stabilization

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Kenny Hey Tow

2014

Optical Gas-Phase Frequency References Based on Photonic Crystal Technology : Impact of Slow Light on Molecular Absorption

Isabelle Dicaire

Optical frequency references are devices providing well-defined and stable optical frequency responses to incoming radiation for applications such as high-precision spectroscopy and optical fibre communications. To stabilise the emission frequency of laser ...

EPFL2012

Probing molecular absorption under slow-light propagation using a photonic crystal waveguide

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire

High-resolution infrared absorption spectroscopy of acetylene gas is demonstrated in a dispersion-engineered photonic crystal waveguide under slow-light propagation. Experimental enhancement factors of 0.31 and 1.00 are obtained for TE and TM polarization, ...

2012

Enhancing the light-matter interaction using slow light: towards the concept of dense light

Luc Thévenaz, Sang Hoon Chin, Isabelle Dicaire

A couple of experiments are here presented to clarify the impact of slow light on light-matter interaction. The experiments are designed, so that the process generating slow light and the probed light-matter interaction only present a marginal cross-effect ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2012

Probing molecular absorption under slow light propagation using a photonic crystal waveguide

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire

High-resolution infrared absorption spectroscopy of acetylene gas is demonstrated in dispersion-engineered photonic crystal waveguides under slow light propagation. Individual absorption profiles are obtained for both TE and TM polarizations for group indi ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2012

Gas Sensing using Material and Structural Slow Light Systems

Luc Thévenaz, Sang Hoon Chin, Isabelle Dicaire

Slowing light is expected to enhance light-matter interaction, leading to more compact sensing devices. By simple tests we show that the reality is more complex and the only relevant quantity is the wave electric field. ...

Optical Society of America2012

Structural slow light can enhance Beer-Lambert absorption

Luc Thévenaz, Sang Hoon Chin, Isabelle Dicaire

We experimentally demonstrate that structural slow light can enhance Beer-Lambert absorption. A 4-fold reduction of the group velocity induced by mere cavity effects has caused an increase of molecular absorption by 130%. ...

Optical Society of America2011

Analytical modeling of the gas-filling dynamics in photonic crystal fibers

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire

We present useful expressions predicting the filling time of gaseous species inside photonic crystal fibers. Based on the theory of diffusion, this gas-filling model can be applied to any given fiber geometry or length by calculating diffusion coefficients ...

Optical Society of America2010

Optimized conditions for gas light interaction in photonic crystal fibres

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire

This paper presents helpful expressions predicting the filling time of gaseous species inside photonic crystal fibres. Based on the theory of diffusion, our gas-filling model can be applied to any given fibre geometry or length by calculating diffusion coe ...

The International Society for Optical Engineering2010

Suspended-core fibres as optical gas sensing cells: study and implementation

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire

We have thoroughly studied and modelled many important aspects for the realization of gas-light interactions in suspended-core fibres. The fraction of the optical field propagating in holes could be calculated from the fibre geometry to predict the total a ...

SPIE2009

Experimental verification of the effect of slow light on molecular absorption

Luc Thévenaz, Stella Foaleng Mafang, Sang Hoon Chin, Isabelle Dicaire

The absorption of light by a gas molecule has been measured comparatively using light propagating in normal conditions and in a slow light regime. The experiment is designed to make the 2 measurements possible without modifying the interaction conditions, ...

SPIE2009

Material Slow Light Does Not Enhance Beer-Lambert Absorption

Luc Thévenaz, Stella Foaleng Mafang, Sang Hoon Chin, Isabelle Dicaire

Optical Society of America2009