Laboratory

Our laboratory can be divided in two sections: synthesis (including infiltration) and characterization.

Synthesis

Synthesis of fine spheres (Stöber method for silica, polymerization for latex and PMMA)
Cambridge Nanotech atomic layer deposition (ALD) System for infiltration with oxides (Al2O3, SiO2, ZnO, Ta2O5, VO2)
Home made Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) for oxides
Ovens and furnaces for sedimentation and thermal treatments
Climatic chamber
Magnesioredution crucible

Characterization

Nd/YAG pulsed laser (ns)
Materials characterization: Raman, Luminescence
Photonic band gap Characterization: Transmission, Reflectance
Stripe length system for gain measurements
Integrating sphere
Fibre enabled confocal microscope

Ultrafast optical spectroscopy

Chameleon: 80 MHz mode-locked 150 fs Ti:Sa pulsed laser (680 nm-1080nm)
OPerA Solo: 1 KHz 130 fs Optical parametric amplifier (300 nm-2600 nm) pumped by
Libra: Regenerative amplifier
Hamamatsu Streak Camera (ps)
Spectra Physics Nd vanadate 80 MHz 12 ps pulsed laser
PicoQuant Time correlated single photon counting (TCSPC)

Microscopy

nm resolution piezo scanning stage
Zeiss inverted microscope attached to
Hamamatsu single photon detecting EM-CCD
Fourier imaging system
Angle resolved emission setup