Fonctions Optiques pour les Technologies de l’informatiON - CNRS UMR 6082

Team coordinator: Marc VALLET

The key thematic areas of the FOTON-DOP team are: laser optics, microwave photonics, teraHertz & metrology, interferometric sensors, advanced imaging and integrated photonics. Our studies aim at increasing fundamental knowledge on light and light-matter interaction, and at developing innovative applications in collaboration with industrial partners. These activities rely on experiments conducted within the laboratory with a wide set of optical systems and laser sources (solid-state lasers, semiconductor lasers, femto-second lasers, etc.)

Research activities in the FOTON-DOP team fall within the following research axes of the FOTON Institute:

• Axis II : Microwave, Millimeter and Tera-Hertz Optics
• Axis III : Innovative materials for Photonics
• Axis IV : Instrumentation, Optical Sensors and Coherent Imaging
• Axis VI : Lasers Physics and Metrology

while being structured at the team level in six main research activities:

Dynamics of diode-pumped solid-state lasers are investigated, more particularly in the presence of vectorial effects (dual-frequency lasers) and new transverse effects. This research field also studies noise and coupling in low-noise class-A lasers, and designs innovative low-noise lasers involving intra-cavity optical nonlinearities. (...)

This research activity aims at developing dual-frequency laser sources at 780 nm, 1064 nm and 1550 nm for microwave generation and optoelectronic oscillator realization. The design of efficient microwave beat note stabilization techniques is also investigated, for spectroscopy or metrology applications. Lastly, this research activity also comprises the optimization of microwave photonics links used for distribution and processing of optically carried RF signals, and optical signal processing for antennas control. (...)

The objective of this research activity is to generate frequency references with high spectral purity in the teraHertz range by optical means, with record frequency stability. The applications of such frequency references are high-resolution teraHertz spectrocopy, teraHertz metrology, and the heterodyne teraHertz detection at room temperature (...)

This activity aims at developing interferometric instruments with very high sensitivity (Michelson, Fabry-Perot, Sagnac, …) to measure faint or poorly known physical effects. Among realizations carried out recently, the design of an all-fibre Sagnac loop interferometer paves the way for measurements of static or temporal non reciprocal effects (magneto-chirality, Fermi effect,…). The influence of distributed birefringences on the transfer functions of resonant cavities is also theoretically investigated, particularly for the optimization of the cavities of the VIRGO interferometer (...)

We study and optimize non conventional techniques for polarimetric imaging and ballistic photons imaging through diffusive media. The instruments and signal/image processing that we develop to implement these techniques rely on a thorough understanding of the physics of image. They provide tools to better understand the interaction of light with matter in general, and with biological tissues more specifically (...)

Physics of integrated photonics structures at the micrometer or nanometer scale is investigated, from theoretical understanding of optical waveguiding at these scales, to the characterization of the structures (sub-wavelength waveguides with 1-D polymer nanostructures) designed and realized at the laboratory (...)

Organization

The FOTON-DOP team comprises five research professors (associate professors and professors at the University of Rennes 1), one CNRS research director, and a CNRS research engineer. The team relies also on a technical workshop for multiskills research support (électronics, instrumentation, optics, mechanics, IT…) formed by four technical staff from the University of Rennes 1, who design and realize the original instrumental developments conducted within the FOTON-DOP team.

On an average, the team welcomes five PhD students and one or two short-term contracts researchers (post-doctoral fellows,…) investing themselves on the various research activities. In addition, each year, a dozen of students in internship (engineering schools, bachelor or masters,…) temporary reinforces the workforce.

The FOTON-DOP team is involved in numerous research contracts, either public (ANR, ASTRID,…) or industrial, in close collaboration with french partners (academics, or companies) or international collaborators. The research professors of the team actively contribute to high-level training in photonics, through physics courses in the Physics and Material Science teaching Dpt. of the University, but also engineering curricula (ESIR engineering school, « Physics and Instrumentaion » CMI), and the regional master’s training in Photonics.

FOTON-DOP team publications

FOTON-DOP team directory