Molecular Photonics Laboratory

Gruppo di Lavoro

Francesco Michelotti

Agostino Occhicone

Alberto Sinibaldi

The Molecular Photonics Laboratory (MPL) gathers equipment, expertise and experiments used for the study of the linear, nonlinear, photoluminescence and electroluminescence properties of molecular and polymeric organic materials. Such materials are used for the fabrication of integrated optical devices, organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and dye-sensitized organic solar cells (DSSC).The laboratory expertise has been developed since 1992, also in the frame of master of science and doctorate projects carried out in particular by students of the Electronic Engineering, Nanotechnology Engineering and Physics Courses.

Since 2007 the laboratory started migrating towards the ﬁeld of Biophotonics, in which the materials are still organic but of biological origin. We worked hard to pursuit such a transition, which involved a modiﬁcation of the experimental techniques and their integration with new expertise in chemistry and biochemistry. We believe the transition is now complete as witnessed by our latest publications in the ﬁeld.

Figure 1: (a) Custom benchtop optical setups, (b) Integrated photonics setup, (c) Glove-box, with DC sputtering and spin coating systems, (d) BSW early cancer biomarker detection platform developed in the project BILOBA, (e) Infrared Surface Plasmon Resonance platform, (f) Custom and commercial tools for advanced numerical simulations in optics and photonics.

The MPL is equipped with the following technical instrumentation:

CW He-Ne lasers (632.8 and 543 nm) and laser diodes (635, 670, 1300, 1550nm, tunable 1490-1590nm);
modelocked Nd:YAG laser (1064nm, SH 532nm, f=76MHz, 100ps), dye laser (R6G band, f=0.147-38MHz, 1ps), Q-Switched Nd:YAG laser (1064nm, SH 532nm, f=1-10Hz, 6ns);
optical components (mirrors, lenses, beamsplitters, polarizers, phase retarders, ﬁbers, objectives) and mount-ings (manual/motorized) used to assemble benchtop laboratory setups in optics and photonics;
complete experimental setup for the characterization of photonic integrated circuits, with microscope;
equipment for the chemical functionalization of optical biosensors (gold/dielectric surfaces), with a glove-box;
equipment for microﬂuidics (cells, motorized pumps, tubings, switches, valves, temperature control);
CW sputtering (gold) and spin coating systems;
Range of didactic kits used in the optics and photonics courses, including a WEB accessible ellipsometer (https://remotelab.ing2.uniroma1.it/)