Optical signal processing will become a vital part of modern telecommunication vision. Both companies and academic groups worldwide are making big scientific and technological research efforts in order to make "optical" not only the signal transmission but also their processing at the network nodes.

We aim to realize opto-electronic devices having functionalities of interest for optical communication systems, using as active materials new composites based on polymers and Liquid Crystals (LC). Nowadays industrial use of these materials is almost totally confined in the display market. Even though a wide and high-level scientific literature exists about LC based devices proposed for processing light signals (photonic devices), their industrial success, at least in niche areas, is still uncertain depending on more stringent feasibility checks. This is particularly true for photonic devices in the field of optical communications. In fact, these devices should work within wavelength bands in the near IR, while all LC based materials have been designed and characterized in the visible range. Now, the final achievements of our project could give a significant contribution for filling the gap.

We are attending several ways of research: 

PEOPLE

Full Prof. Giancarlo Abbate

PhD Student Antigone Marino

PhD Student Francesco Vita

Laurea Student Giuseppe Del Gais