Chalcogenide Photonic Technologies

硫属化物是基于硫、硒和/或碲的金属合金的材料。虽然在20世纪50年代才首次形成玻璃，但它们首先出现在新一代CD和DVD中，它们形成玻璃和晶体结构的能力允许存储信息。这种光学存储是基于当激光加热硫属化物材料并将其从晶体结构转换为玻璃结构时光学性质的变化。这种相变效应也被积极地研究用于电子存储器，最终旨在取代目前的记忆棒技术。硫属化物在这里提供了更高的读写速率，更小的存储单元尺寸和随着时间的推移改善的稳定性。在拟议的工作中，我们的目标是开发和提高我们的专业知识，在沉积硫属化物薄膜，并随后在这些薄膜中形成光导进一步的光电应用的硫属化物。光在光导中的限制将增强被引导的光功率，并且可以导致如上所述的基于相变的器件。然而，硫属化物对光的响应更快，更强，这可以通过波导结构设计得非常有效，使我们能够开发超高速光学开关元件，用于在光波长之间转换的设备（改变“颜色”）和量子光源发射光子“幽灵般连接”纠缠对。通过用过渡金属掺杂我们的波导，我们希望制造大量新波长的激光器，特别是在红外区域。硫系玻璃在更长的波长下具有比传统玻璃更高的透射率，将激光应用扩展到航空航天、化学传感和专业医疗传感器的人眼安全测距仪。

Chalcogenides are materials based on metallic alloys of sulphur, selenium and/or tellurium. Although only formed into glasses for the first time in the 1950's, they emerged first in a new generation of CD's and DVD's where their ability to be formed into glass and crystalline structures allow information to be stored. This optical storage is based on changes of optical properties when a laser heats the chalcogenide material and converts it from crystalline to glass structure. This phase change effect is also being actively investigated for electronic memories ultimately aiming to replace present memory stick technology. Chalcogenides here offer vastly higher read and write rates, smaller memory cell size and improved stability over time.In the proposed work, we are aiming to develop further optoelectronic applications of chalcogenides by exploiting and enhancing our expertise in depositing thin films of chalcogenide and subsequently forming light guides in these films. The confinement of light in the guides will enhance the guided light power and could lead to devices based on phase change as above. However the chalcogenides have much faster and stronger responses to light, which can be engineered to be extremely effective through the waveguide structure allowing us to develop ultra-high speed optical switch elements, devices for converting between light wavelengths (changing the 'colour') and quantum light sources emitting photons in 'spookily connected' entangled pairs . By doping our waveguides with transition metals we expect to make lasers at a significant number of new wavelengths, particularly in the infrared region. Chalcogenide glass has higher transmission at much longer wavelengths than conventional glasses extending the laser applications to eyesafe rangefinders for aerospace, chemical sensing and specialist medical sensors.