Photonic Materials & Optical Fibres

Prof Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem and her team explore ground-breaking glass science and technology.

The group leads the development of the fabrication of new glass materials and fibre structures. Collaboration with externs in various disciplines and with global companies enables these glass material and fibre structures to drive innovations in sensing, non-linear optics, lasers, mid-IR and more.

Their current focus includes four key research themes

  • Research Overview

    The research group has access to and collaborates closely with Optofab Adelaide, providing them with a vertically integrated range of expertise and facilities, from modelling to device fabrication. The research areas developed in the group range from fundamental science to application-driven design and development.


    Key areas of application strength include the development of:

    • Tellurite and fluoride glasses (both passive and active)
    • Advanced technologies for processing and shaping glass
    • Advanced preform technologies (extrusion and drilling based)
    • Glasses and fibres capable of transmitting light in the mid-infrared that underpin new sensing platforms and lasers
    • Custom silica fibres for fibre lasers, including air-clad rare-earth doped fibres
    • Suspended and exposed core silica fibres for sensing
    • Glasses with enhanced infrared transmission and optical nonlinearity
    • Nanophotonic glasses created by embedding nanocrystals in glass
    • Micro and nanostructured soft glass and silica optical fibre
    • Speciality doped, active and passive silica fibres, including single-mode germano-silica, rare-earth doped silica and double/triple clad fibres
  • Modelling

    Modelling is primarily carried out in collaboration, examples include:

    • A suite of analytical, numerical and finite-element modelling tools to predict the optical properties of waveguides and fibres with complex structures
    • New theoretic frameworks to explore waveguides and fibres with extreme properties and nanoscale features
    • Waveguide and fibre design based on reversed engineering techniques
    • Mathematical modelling of the complex mechanics of fluid flow
  • Fabrication of glasses and fibres

    Fabrication of glasses and fibres are conducted in partnership with Optofab Adelaide. Examples are:

    • Controlled atmosphere glass batching, melting and annealing
    • Soft and hard glass preform extrusion
    • Soft and hard glass preform ultrasonic milling
    • Soft glass and silica fibre drawing
    • 3D glass printing using filament for soft glass
    • 3D glass printing using nanoparticles loaded resin for silica printing
  • Characterisation

    Adelaide is fortunate to have access to a range of characterisation facilities including:

    • High-resolution optical and electron microscopes
    • Transmission spectrometers and ellipsometers spanning from the ultraviolet to the far-infrared spectral region (200 nm-30 μm)
    • Optical profiler to measure surface roughness
    • Simultaneous thermal analysis (STA/TGA/DSC)
    • Fibre loss measurement
    • Optical table for laser and optical experiments
Prof Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem

 Prof Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem

Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS)  
The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005  
Telephone:  +61 (0)8 831 31136
Email: heike.ebendorff@adelaide.edu.au

Researcher Profile

  • Anna Radionova - Extrusion
  • Asfandyar PhD - Extrusion
  • Sachin Kumar PhD - Diamond
  • Dr Jacob Dalgleish - Diamond
  • Dr Ka Wu - ZBLAN
  • Dr Yunle Wei - ZBLAN, Gold NPs
  • Dr Kwang Jun Lee - ZBLAN
  • Ehab Salih PhD - ZBLAN