Polymer rare earth nanoparticle waveguide amplifier

聚合物稀土纳米粒子波导放大器

• 批准号: 322077-2005
• 负责人: Andrews, Mark
• 金额: $ 9.49万
• 依托单位: McGill University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Strategic Projects - Group
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2007-01-01 至 2008-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=363886
• 关键词: Polymer; rare; earth; nanoparticle; waveguide

Photonics technologies and nanotechnologies are widely recognized in Canada as significant domains of competitive activity because of their potential to generate new science, new technologies and new markets with significant economic impact in health, engineering, the environment, manufacturing and communications. Photonics loosely refers to the use of light to transmit, alter, store or retrieve information. Nanotechnologies are concerned with exploiting the fundamental new properties that emerge when objects are made very small. This project combines opportunities in both strategic domains. It describes methods to make tiny particles (nanoparticles) that contain rare earth ions like erbium that can be used to amplify optical signals. The project also describes very simple ways of locating these nanoparticles in polymer (plastic) materials that can be fabricated into optical circuits that will conduct light. One function of the optical circuit is to amplify light at the telecommunications wavelength around 1550 nm. Optical amplifiers are in great demand in the photonics industry. These optical circuits are normally difficult to make, but we propose simplified ways to do this by incorporating nanoparticles into polymer films into which optical circuits can be projected by elementary optical printing techniques, called photolithography. The resulting device is called a Polymer Rare Earth Doped Waveguide Amplifier (PREDWA). More generally, a breakthrough in the research might lead to new kinds of devices that actually require less or no amplification by virtue of including rare earth doped nanoparticles in the compositions.

光子学技术和纳米技术在加拿大被广泛认为是竞争活动的重要领域，因为它们有可能产生新科学、新技术和新市场，对卫生、工程、环境、制造和通信产生重大的经济影响。光子学泛指利用光来传输、改变、存储或检索信息。纳米技术关注的是开发当物体变得非常小时出现的基本新特性。该项目结合了两个战略领域的机会。它描述了制造含有稀土离子（如铒）的微小粒子（纳米粒子）的方法，这种粒子可以用来放大光信号。该项目还描述了在聚合物（塑料）材料中定位这些纳米粒子的非常简单的方法，这些聚合物（塑料）材料可以制造成导光的光学电路。光学电路的功能之一是放大1550nm左右的通信波长的光。光放大器在光电子工业中需求量很大。这些光学电路通常很难制造，但我们提出了一种简化的方法，通过将纳米颗粒结合到聚合物薄膜中，光学电路可以通过基本的光学印刷技术（称为光刻技术）投射到聚合物薄膜中。由此产生的器件称为掺稀土聚合物波导放大器（PREDWA）。更广泛地说，研究中的突破可能会导致新型设备的出现，由于在组合物中加入了稀土掺杂纳米颗粒，这些设备实际上需要更少或不需要放大。