In December 2021, Saood Nazir successfully defended his thesis – His study was on the “Femtosecond laser-based optomechanical processes for permanent and high-precision fine alignment of optical systems”.
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/290699
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/291046?ln=en
Ruben Ricca, Victor Boureau, Yves Bellouard: “This work investigates the interaction of ultrafast lasers with stacked, sub-wavelength thick, layer coatings. The exposure conditions resulted in strong and controlled intermixing between layers and in the formation of cubic-diamond silicon nanocrystals dispersed within the laser-affected zones. This can represent a powerful method for the selective and confined formation of crystalline compounds in amorphous dielectric matrices, starting up from discrete elements of well-defined composition and benefiting from the intrinsic advantages of nonlinear absorption”, published in the Journal of Applied Physics.
October 2021 – Sometimes you have to take things apart – separate out their components, dig into the nuts and bolts and test various hypotheses – to figure out how they work. That’s the premise behind the reverse-engineering class at EPFL, where students deconstruct everyday objects to better understand the mechanisms involved.
August 2021 – Enrico Casamenti, Sacha Pollonghini, and Yves Bellouard: “In this work, we optimize both laser and chemical processes to achieve unprecedented aspect ratio levels and process efficiency. We further show how the formation of pre-cursor laser-induced defects in the glass matrix plays a key role in etching selectivity” published in Optics Express.
23.6.2021 – L. Borasi; E. Casamenti; R. Charvet; C. Dénéréaz; S. Pollonghini : “In this combination of femtosecond laser micromachining of glass and pressure-assisted metal infiltration brings metal casting to the microscale, enabling the production of 3D freeform metal components and glass/metal composites” published in the Journal of Manufacturing Processes
25.5.2021 – Olivier Bernard, Bellouard Yves – “Using a digital holographic microscope built in a laser processing platform, we have shown in-situ monitoring of the refractive index in laser-affected fused silica. Thanks to its integration into a wider digital twin-based control mechanism, we show smoothening of laser directional effects (i.e. non spatial symmetry, or quill effect), and inscription of small-scale arbitrary phase plates.” published in the Journal of Physics – Photonics.
18.5.2021 – S.I. Nazir, Y. Bellouard: “We have shown how femtosecond laser micro-manufacturing can be used for device miniaturization and optical packaging. In this regard, a contactless method for high-efficiency laser to single-method fiber coupling is demonstrated” published in the Journal of IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing.
14.5.2021 – G. Torun; T. Kishi; Y. Bellouard – “We show extended self-organized periodic patterns beyond the zone under direct laser exposure and formation of crystalline tellurium on tellurite glass surface. Physical mechanisms were proposed that early self-organized nanostructures formed by a local-field enhancement are subsequently reinforced by in open-air atmosphere” published in the Journal of Physical Review Materials.
23.3.2021 – E. Casamenti; T. Yang; P. Vlugter; Y. Bellouard: “In this work, we investigate mechanical nonlinearities in herently present in suspended glass waveguides as a mean for optically retrieving key vibration pattern information, such as positive or negative chirp, without the need for any additional signal” published in Optics Express.
During the international conference GLASS MEETING 2020, organized by the Glass division of the Ceramic Society of Japan, Mrs Gözden TORUN, doctoral student at the Galatea Lab at EPFL’s School of Engineering, won the gold prize.
25.1.2021 – EPFL engineers teamed up with luxury watchmaker Vacheron Constantin to develop an innovative system that uses lasers to create 3D sculptures within sapphire watch crystals (see the video).
29.12.2020 – Yves Bellouard, an associate professor in the Galatea Laboratory from the School of Engineering, has been named best teacher in the microengineering section for the academic year 2019-2020.
In September 2020, Pieter Vlugter successfully defended his thesis – His study was on the “Investigation of femtosecond laser-tuned thermomechanical properties of fused silica”.
