AirGuide Photonics

光纤是我们日益科技化的社会的核心，例如：支持我们现在认为理所当然的互联网和移动的通信，通过使用光纤内窥镜进行医疗诊断和干预来挽救生命，以及通过基于光纤激光的材料加工实现大量商业产品的大规模生产。然而，目前的光纤技术有其局限性，主要是由于光被限制在固体玻璃芯中。这对信号可以传输的功率和波长范围、信号传播的速度以及对外部环境的敏感性产生了根本性的限制。这些限制现在开始在许多应用领域施加限制。例如，在电信中，波长信道之间的非线性相互作用将当前单模光纤的最大总数据传输容量限制为~100-200 Tbit/s（对于放大的地面系统）。此外，非线性、热和材料损伤阈值结合联合收割机来限制可以在紧密聚焦的光束中递送的最大峰值和平均功率。这限制了潜在用途的范围，特别是在越来越多地用于各种材料加工应用的重要的超短脉冲制度中。这些限制原则上可以通过利用具有被精细玻璃微结构包围的中空芯的光纤中的新的光导机制来克服。这种纤维通常被称为空芯纤维（HCF）。在该计划中，我们将寻求重新发明光纤技术，并将用空气或真空取代玻璃芯，以生产光纤2.0，提供非常上级但尚未开发的潜力。我们的最终愿景是建立一个互联的世界，设备、机器、数据中心和城市可以通过这些中空的光管道连接起来，实现更快、更便宜、更有弹性和更安全的通信。一个更绿色、更健康的世界，在那里，强烈的激光可以被引导到生产商品和更有效地运行内燃机，并在真实的时间内对我们体内的癌症组织进行成像。一个探索的世界，中空光导将使阿秒科学，粒子物理学，计量学和行星际探索的科学突破。因此，我们的总体目标是重新审视我们对光制导的看法，并开发一种挑战传统思维的颠覆性技术。该计划将使英国在HCF技术本身及其支持的许多新应用和服务方面处于世界领先地位。

Optical fibres lie at the heart of our increasingly technological society, for example: supporting the internet and mobile communications that we all now take for granted, saving lives through medical diagnosis and interventions using fibre-optic endoscopes, and enabling the mass production of a huge array of commercial products through fibre laser based materials processing. However, current fibre optics technology has its limitations due largely to the fact that the light is confined to a solid glass core. This places fundamental restrictions on the power and wavelength range over which signals can be transmitted, the speed at which signals propagate, and in terms of sensitivity to the external environment. These limits are now starting to impose restrictions in many application areas. For example, in telecommunications, nonlinear interactions between wavelength channels limit the maximum overall data transmission capacity of current single mode fibres to ~100-200 Tbit/s (for amplified terrestrial systems). Moreover, nonlinear, thermal and material damage thresholds combine to limit the maximum peak and average powers that can be delivered in a tightly focusable beam. This restricts the range of potential uses, particularly in the important ultrashort pulse regime increasingly used for a wide variety of materials processing applications These limitations can in principle be overcome by exploiting new light guidance mechanisms in fibres with a hollow core surrounded by a fine glass microstructure. Such fibres are generally referred to as Hollow Core Fibres (HCFs). Within this Programme we will seek to reinvent fibre optics technology and will replace the glass core with air or vacuum to produce Optical Fibres 2.0, offering vastly superior but largely unexplored potential. Our ultimate vision is that of a Connected World, where devices, machines, data centres and cities can be linked through these hollow light pipes for faster, cheaper, more resilient and secure communications. A Greener and Healthier World, where intense laser light can be channelled to produce goods and run combustion engines more efficiently and to image cancer tissues inside our bodies in real time. And an Explorative World, where hollow lightguides will enable scientific breakthroughs in attosecond science, particle physics, metrology and interplanetary exploration. Our overall ambition is therefore to revisit the way we think about light guidance and to develop a disruptive technology that challenges conventional thinking.The programme will provide the UK with a world-leading position both in HCF technology itself and in the many new applications and services that it will support.