by Bianca Fabricante, CSM
Asst. Prof. Noel Lito B. Sayson, a faculty member of the Department of Physics of the College of Science ad Mathematics published a paper entitled Octave-spanning tuneable parametric oscillation in crystalline Kerr micro resonators in the prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal, Nature Photonics.
Sayson and his team’s scientific breakthrough resides in the realization that ultrahigh-Q crystalline microresonators made of magnesium fluoride can be used to generate laser light with tunable frequency (color) thereby overcoming limitations of previous implementations. They showed that by launching a single low-power beam into a microresonator, two new beams with different and widely tuneable frequencies can be generated. This novel microresonator is relatively cheap, easy to fabricate, simple to operate, and relatively smaller in size vis a vis the currently existing devices available. This development can induce a new era of portable and compact devices for various applications such as in monitoring hazardous gases in the environment and detection of changes in cells for early detection of cancer and other diseases [1].
Working on this research together with Sayson are the following experts: Associate Professors Stuart Murdoch and Stephane Coen, Dr. Miro Erkintalo, Dr. Vincent Ng and MSc students Toby Bi and Hoan Pham, from The University of Aukland, New Zealand. They also have collaborators from the University of Otago namely, Dr. Harald Schwefel and PhD student Luke Trainor.
The team published their paper in Nature Photonics last July 8, 2019. Nature Photonics is a prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Nature Publishing Group. This journal, established last January 2007, covers researches in optoelectronics, laser science, imaging, communications, and other areas of photonics and has a 5-year impact factor of 38.301 [2]. An impact factor is an index used by academic journals reflecting the yearly average number of citations that recent published articles are given in a specific journal. In general, journals with higher impact factors are perceived to be more important than those with lower ones.
Currently, Sayson is working under the Nonlinear Optics and Photonics Laboratory at the University of Aukland, New Zealand, where he is finishing his PhD in Physics. Since 2016, his research is focused on developing a low-cost, low-power, widely tuneable optical source suitable for mid-infrared spectroscopy. He is set to be reinstated in the Physics Department early in 2020.