The 11th EPS-QEOD EUROPHOTON conference was held in Vilnius, Lithuania this year, where the latest breakthroughs in the field of solid-state, fiber and waveguide light sources were shared.
Ming and Max presented our group’s latest advances in waveguide-based light sources. Max presented his collaborative work with Ming on a dual-wavelength waveguide-based optical parametric oscillator (WOPO), and Ming presented her collaborative work with Kristin on utilizing the WOPO light source for anti-Stokes Raman scattering applications.

Ming's conference talk
Max' conference talk

Michael's paper on the controlled generation of transverse mode-locked beams has been published. The interference of transverse resonator modes produces a laser spot that moves periodically along a line - without mechanical movement by a deflection optic, allowing high speeds of 80 MHz. The moving beams were emitted continuously and their dynamics during oscillation could be controlled directly, which was previously not possible at such a high level. See the publication.
 

New optical tables in three laboratories: In recent weeks, the laboratories first had to be completely cleared out before the old tables could be dismantled and the new ones installed. The steel tables absorb vibrations due to their solid construction and pneumatic isolation, which enables sensitive measurements. They also offer more space than their predecessors. The first experiments have already been set up again: Now the research in the laboratory can begin again! 

Michael's and Kristin's contributions to the Photonics West conference were funded by the Santander Mobilitätsfonds of the University of Münster. As a part of this funding they present their personal and technical experiences: Kristin will talk about the daily routine on a conference and about her current research on stimulated Raman scattering, whereas Michael will tell about optical clocks and their precision. The talks take place on May 2, 12:30 h in the seminar room 222 in the Institute of Applied Physics.
All students of the faculty are kindly invited.

Scientific discussions with snacks and drinks, that's what we had this week at the poster sessions of the Focus on Microscopy in Genoa. Kristin presented a poster on her work on heterodyne detection in CARS imaging as well as a poster on Nick's results on balanced detection and was able to bring a lot of positive feedback and new ideas back to Münster. 

New publication on Optics Express! In this paper, Ming demonstrated an efficient and widely tunable synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator (OPO) exploiting four-wave mixing in a silicon nitride waveguide.  This waveguide-based OPO (WOPO) exhibited a high conversion efficiency of up to -7.64 dB and generated up to 387 pJ idler pulse energy. This WOPO represents a significant improvement of conversion efficiency as well as output energy among χ3-WOPOs, rendering an important step towards a highly efficient and widely tunable chip-based light source, e.g., for coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering. See the publication.

San Francisco. Known for the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars and home to one of the largest conferences in the field of photonics – the Photonics West.

At this conference, Kristin and Michael presented their latest results on background-reduced CARS microscopy and controlled generation of transverse mode-locked beams.

Kristin's conference talk
Michael's conference talk

The RamanFest (International Conference on Advanced Applied Raman Spectroscopy) brings together experts from research and industry to discuss the latest developments and applications of Raman microscopy.

Kristin and Nick were part of the conference program in Paris and presented their work on background signal suppression using frequency modulation in stimulated Raman scattering and balanced detection. As a bonus, Kristin was awarded the prize for the best PhD poster.

We were once again at the BachelorMaster day to showcase the work in our research group and possible topics for student theses.

It was particularly important to us to draw the students' attention to the combination of experimental and theoretical work and the many areas of application of our research. In the following week students had the opportunity to get to know our experiments in detail during a guided tour through our labs.

We are still looking for students who would like to write their thesis in the Optical Technologies group! If you are interested, please contact us at opttech@uni-muenster.de.

Every research group benefits from the experience of its alumni. We were therefore delighted to see so many of them at our network meeting. Progress in our current research fields (nonlinear microscopy, waveguide-based light sources and transverse modes) was presented and the future direction of the group was discussed.

It is remarkable how many exciting career paths have developed after the time in the working group. From the development of specialized laser systems in their own start-up to the assessment of traffic accidents: Applied physics opens up many career paths!