Research Activities
A detailed overview of our research activities can be found in our image brochure which appeared in 2011.
Close to real applications, we are developing novel devices for photonics as high-capacity volume holographic storage systems as well as their encryption and data processing. We evolve new techniques in biophotonics, especially nonlinear and photorefractive microscopy and holographic optical multifocus tweezers and apply them in forthcoming fields as cell biology and micro fluidics. Developing novel materials for this purposes that are tailored to fulfill high nonlinearites at lowcosts is also belonging to our field of activities. We are investigating new holographic storage materials as well as electro-optic and nonlinear functional polymers.
Moreover, we are bringing forward novel nonlinear effects into the view of photonic applications, aiming to realize an all-optical photonic chip that is build by the concept of light is guiding light. For this purpose, we are investigating optical solitons in space and time and their interaction, their potential of creating self-induced adaptive waveguides as well as the possibility of optically inducing photonic structures in materials, thereby producing photonic crystals by light.
All these activities head to bring photonics into a new dimension and to extend established optical techniques in information processing. Novel storage and information processing concepts that allow to realize all-optical computing, adaptive and self-organized photonic structures that guide and route light, and intelligent, self-sustained learning systems are all approaches that will bring photonics to a new age - the age of nonlinear photonics.