New glassy Materials and Optical fibers for wellbeing in Society

近年来，新型玻璃材料的开发、非常规光纤的设计和微/纳米级制造等技术的进步，为微型化和集成化技术领域的重大突破铺平了道路。关于更具体的光纤拉伸，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（硫族化物，氟化物，碲酸盐等）在过去15年中作为替代材料正在融合，因为二氧化硅在红外中的狭窄透射窗口排除了它在特定应用中的应用。然而，如今，光纤拉伸技术正在慢慢演变成一种加工路线，可以使用新型材料和/或材料组合、新的几何形状和新的协议。例如，用于中红外光学的半导体填充芯硅纤维，用于声学或光探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，应该发明新的光纤或预制体的制造路线，以实现未来光子元件和系统中实现目标功能所需的材料或复合结构的组合。具有特定性能的材料以纤维的形式进行复杂的关联，这些材料可以很容易地集成或相互连接，并为需要收集和集成不同性质的数据的特定问题提供新颖的解决方案。

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.