Plasma photonic for the realisation and the industrialization of UV/DUV tunable fiber laser sources – Plasma-PMC

The GPPMM group of XLIM research institute has recently achieved a seminal work in the development of the first stable microwave plasma confined in the micro-scale core of a hollow-core photonic crystal fibre. This work has been undertaken in collaboration with the LPGP lab of Orsay and under a granted project, named “UVfactor”, funded by the ANR-DGA agency under the ASTRID 2011 call. During this project, several important milestones were achieved as illustrated by the high rate of publications generated (5 peer-review articles, 15 international communications including 3 invited papers, 1 patent application and the Rank Prize Funds 2014). Among which, we count i) the development of a new class of state-of-the-art HC-PCFs, ii) the discovery of innovative plasma dynamics allowing to sustain microwave-driven microplasmas in such HC-PCFs with no damage to its structure, with relatively low temperature and high ionization rate, thus offering room for power scaling-up, and iii) the first demonstration of microstrip lines driven micro-plasma in HC-PCF technology, providing a compelling proof-of-concept to miniaturize the technology. All of these recent technological breakthroughs clearly show the potential of this emerging science that lies at the frontier of gas-plasma field and the photonics but also its ability to industrialize in a relatively short time as evidenced by the level of maturity achieved during the ASTRID project which has progressed from the proof-of-concept level to a TRL between 3 and 4. Indeed, these developments allow us now to go further towards the achievement of novel and highly-compact tunable ultra-violet (UV) fibre laser sources. The result will then fulfill the longstanding wish to cover the UV/DUV spectral range in the lost efficient manner, and invigorate the UV/DUV laser technology which has stagnated since the 70s. Consequently, the present Plasma-PMC project aims at capitalizing on the outstanding results obtained during the UVfactor grant in order to move to the development of a novel platform for industry. The proposed laser sources will be designed to meet the growing needs from both the military community for the pollutants detection, dangerous targets or the bio-defense applications by spectro-plasma and the medical field especially dermatology for the treatment of vitiligo and psoriasis which affects more than 3 million people in France. To address this purpose, our interest within the framework of the ANR Maturation meets the three following objectives: i) the choice of the gas mixture to reach all the benefits associated with the tailoring of photon emission in UV/DUV range (wavelength and spectral intensity), ii) the miniaturization of the concept to integrate the product into systems or even making an easy-to-use source and finally iii) the power scaling of the source associated to a transverse singlemode. In the same time, another task will be dedicated to lead a market research in order to analyze more precisely the need and modify if necessary some parameters of the final product. In this context, the consortium is composed of i) the two academic partners who have initiated this joint-venture (XLIM/GPPMM and LPGP) by through the ANR ASTRID “UVfactor” grant, ii) a new partner (SPCTS lab) mastering the research in the synthesis of ceramics to address the stakes involved about the power scaling. Finally, the expected outcome of the Plasma-PMC project will fit perfectly the patent portfolio held by the company GLOphotonics which includes several patents relating to almost all key elements of the final product as the manufacture of HC-PCFs, the fabrication of photonic gas cells based on gas-filled HC-PCFs and the manufacture of gas-based lasers sources. Therefore, the company GLOphotonics was naturally identified as the preferred industrial partner to integrate this project with the ultimate aim of achieving the first fibre component Plasma-PMC and the associated UV/DUV gas laser prototype.