New glassy Materials and Optical fibers for wellbeing in Society

在新玻璃组合物的开发、非常规光纤设计和微米/纳米尺度的制造方面的最新技术进步正在为微型化和集成技术领域的重大突破铺平道路。关于更具体的光纤拉丝，研究人员主要致力于光子学和光纤激光器的硅基光纤玻璃，而“外来”材料（硫属化物、氟化物、亚碲酸盐等）当二氧化硅在红外线中的窄透射窗口排除了其在特定应用中的使用时，过去15年来的替代品正在合并。然而，如今，纤维拉丝技术正在慢慢演变成一种能够使用新型材料和/或一组材料、新几何形状和新协议的加工路线。例如，设想了用于中红外光学器件的半导体填充芯二氧化硅纤维、用于声学或光电检测的多材料玻璃-金属-聚合物纤维、或用于纳米颗粒/纳米线制造的流体动力学控制。为了它们的发展，应该发明用于光纤或预制件的新的制造路线，以实现在未来光子部件和系统中实现目标功能所需的材料或复合结构的组合。以纤维形式存在的具有特定性质的材料的复杂关联，可以很容易地集成或互连，并为需要收集和集成不同性质数据的特定问题提供新的解决方案。 最近，多材料和多功能纤维已经显示出其强大的潜力，可以同时提供多种功能，如导电性，压电性，物理/化学传感以及光传输。然后，复杂的结构可以通过直接从自然界、生物光子学和结构材料中汲取灵感来设计和探索。 我们在这项发现补助金提案中的方法依赖于两个技术领域的最新进展：（i）探索可与其他材料（例如聚合物，金属）结合的新玻璃组合物，以生产多材料和多功能纤维;（ii）实施创新和适当的工艺，以实现取决于应用领域的所需性能。在本提案中，我们将重点关注通信、健康、能源和环境材料。

The recent technological advances in the development of new glass compositions, unconventional optical fibers design and manufacturing at a micro-/nano- scale are paving the way for major breakthroughs in the field of miniaturized and integrated technologies. Regarding more specifically fiber drawing, researchers have devoted their activity mainly to silica-based fiber glasses for photonics and fiber lasers, while “exotic” materials (chalcogenide, fluoride, tellurite, etc.) are merging from the last 15 years as alternative when the narrow transmission window of silica in the infrared rules out its utilization in particular applications. Nowadays however, fiber drawing technology is slowly morphing into a processing route enabling the use of new type of materials and/or set of materials, new geometries, and new protocols. Semiconductors filled-core silica fibers for mid-IR optics are for instance envisaged, multi-materials glass-metal-polymer fibers for acoustic or photo-detection, or fluid dynamic control for nanoparticles/nanowire fabrication. For their development, new fabrication routes for fibers or preforms should be invented to enable the combination of materials or composite structures requested for achieving the targeted functionalities in the future photonic components and systems. Complex association of materials with specific properties in the form of fibers that can be easily integrated or interconnected and provide novel solutions to specific problems where the collection and integration of data of different nature is required. Recently, multi-material and multifunctional fibers have demonstrated their strong potential to offer concurrently multiple functionalities like electrical conductivity, piezoelectricity, physical / chemical sensing in addition to light transmission. Then, complex structures can be designed and explored by taking directly inspiration from nature, bioinspired photonics and structural materials. Our approach in this Discovery Grant proposal is relying on the association of recent advances accomplished in two technological domains: (i) the exploration of new glass compositions than can be combined with other materials (e.g. polymers, metals) to produce multi-material and multifunctional fibers and; (ii) the implementation of innovative and appropriate processes to achieve the desired properties depending on the applications area. In this proposal, we will be focusing on materials for communication, health, energy, and environment.