OPTO Group: Projects
BIOSENS (Interreg V FWVL, 2017-2020)
Research Area: Biosensors
BIOSENS is part of the project portfolio SMARTBIOCONTROL.
Surface plasmon resonance is applied to the detection of pathogenic species in the biomedical (Candida Albicans) and phytosanitary (septoria in wheat) fields. In this last field, it is also applied to the dosage of biological pesticides.
Our activity is focused on the implementation of a prototype of dedicated detection equipment. The technical part is developed jointly with the partners University of Liege (B) and Materia Nova (Mons, B), the CHRU (Lille, F) and the CARAH (Ath, B) provide the different biological entities necessary for the applicative experiments, respectively in the medical and phytosanitary fields. Multitel (Mons, B) is in charge of the final integration of the prototype.
The detection is based on the interrogation of sensors in the spectral domain. The sensors are multichannel and allow the simultaneous detection of different molecular interactions via applied microfluidics.
OPERA (ANR, 2017-2020)
Columnar structure of reactively sputtered ZnSnN2
Research area: Photovoltaics
OPERA aims to study new inorganic thin film materials for photovoltaic applications. Ultimately, these materials are dedicated to the realization of an upper cell in a tandem cell configuration using silicon for the lower cell.
Sputtering is used for the realization of compound materials, with large gap and based on abundant elements. The Zn-IV-N material line2 is studied where the IV element can be Sn, Ge or Si.
PHENIX (ANR, 2016-2020)
The PHENIX project, coordinated by the Photonique THzaims at realizing a photonic terahertz transmitter based on a highly distributed photomixer excited by a dual frequency laser. In order to obtain power, the photodetector must be able to absorb up to 1 W on 1 mm length. Ideally, the evanescent absorption should be constant along the entire length of the guide.
Our activity concerns the modeling of optical guides in order to approach this ideal. The optical simulation is performed with a BPM-3D (method of propagated beams) which can be coupled to a genetic algorithm for the optimization of the guide. We also intervene in the design of the rest of the optical circuitry.
Modeling a tap in BPM-3D
