Luminescent thin films and nanostructures for photonics

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The study of optical properties of luminescent nano-materials is a rapidly evolving area in material science, offering a rich potential for breakthrough innovations in many fields, such as phosphors, novel lighting sources, high-power lasers and, more recently, luminescent bioassays. My research program consists of two research themes. First, it aims to synthesize luminescent inorganic materials in the form of nanoparticles of controllable size and to understand how the optical properties of these materials change as their size is reduced down to clusters of just a few atoms. It also aims to examine how the luminescence properties of these nanoparticles change when they are coupled with noble metal nanoparticles that can support localized plasmons. My second research theme consists in producing transparent thin-film laser materials in order to produce novel laser devices such as thin-disk materials or active waveguides. The Groupe de recherche sur les couches minces et la photonique de l'Université de Moncton (GCMP) is an internationally recognized research group and holds a world class research infrastructure dedicated to the synthesis of thin films and nanomaterials. My students and I use these techniques in combination with diagnostic instruments, such as time-of-flight mass spectrometry, to synthesize nanoparticles with controllable size and properties. We measure absorption and fluorescence spectra, the excited lifetimes, energy transfer upconversion and excited state absorption, cooperative processes and other clustering effects, the fluorescent quantum yield, etc, in the materials we obtained after various deposition and annealing conditions. The properties of the obtained materials are systematically compared with bulk materials of similar composition. We also determine the performance of transparent thin-film materials for thin-disk laser and waveguide laser, in order to determine and improve the scalability of the output power. The novel materials arising from our research will produce new devices and applications in the fields of lighting, high-power lasers, visible light sources, and biology, which are industries of key importance to Canada.