Laser-Fabricated Lab on a Chip for Detection of Gases

博士项目将致力于开发一种用于检测各种气体的集成光子平台。重点将放在甲烷的检测上，因为甲烷是温室效应的主要贡献者之一，非常重要。这项工作将包括开发飞秒激光写入的光子电路，该电路将被化学功能化，以引入对所需气体的选择性。电路的开发将需要优化激光写入过程，使用现有的建模工具和实验表征设置来分析所制造的波导的性能。优化的设计将允许将逝去的场暴露在功能化的表面上，从而通过光学手段进行化学传感。化学功能化将要求博士生制定一套必要的化学程序，以达到预期的效果。在使用D型光纤进行甲烷检测的初步结果中，证明了使用二氧化硅波导选择性地检测和测量气体浓度的可行性。这项工作将与国家海洋学中心合作开展。

The PhD project will be on developing an integrated photonic platform for detecting various gases. The emphasis will be put on detection of methane, which is very important being one of the major contributors to greenhouse effect. The work will involve development of femtosecond laser written photonic circuits, which will be chemically functionalised to introduce selectivity for the desired gases. The circuit development will require to optimise laser writing process, analyse performance of the fabricated waveguides using available modelling tools and experimental characterization setups. The optimised design will allow to expose the evanescent field to the functionalised surface enabling chemical sensing via optical means. The chemical functionalisation will require the PhD student to develop a set of chemical procedures necessary to achieve the desired effect. The preliminary results, where methane detection was performed using D-shaped fibre, demonstrated feasibility of using silica waveguides to selectively detect and measure the concentration of gases. The work will be carried in the collaboration with National Oceanography Centre.