POB Seminar - Lithium niobate photonics for UV astronomical spectrograph calibration **Join EPC at General Assembly**

 The EPFL Photonics Chapter (EPC) is very pleased to announce and cordially invite you to our monthly ‘Pizza-Optics-Beer’ (POB) seminar on March 6th, at 18:15 in room ELD 120.


This month we will have the pleasure to host Furkan Ayhan - doctoral assistant in Advanced Nano-electromechanical Systems Laboratory with the presentation entitled:

        "Lithium niobate photonics for UV astronomical spectrograph calibration"


The talk will be followed by the General Assembly of our association, and the apero (pizza&beer).

For organizational purposes (if you want to eat pizza!), please confirm your participation using this Doodle.
Don’t hesitate to extend the invitation to any postdoc and colleague!

Hope to see you there,
The team of the EPFL Photonics Chapter



Abstract:
Precise astronomical spectroscopy is a cornerstone of modern astrophysics, enabling groundbreaking discoveries from exoplanet detection to fundamental tests of physics. The accuracy of these instruments relies on calibration sources, and laser frequency combs, commonly known as astrocombs, have emerged as a promising alternative for achieving unprecedented wavelength precision. Extending calibration into the ultraviolet (UV) regime with astrocombs, however, presents significant challenges due to strong material dispersion and the intricacies of nonlinear frequency conversion.
This talk details how chip-integrated, highly nonlinear lithium niobate photonic devices engineered with nano-fabricated waveguides and tailored poling patterns enable efficient UV astrocomb generation via cascaded harmonic processes. By combining a robust telecommunication-wavelength 18 GHz electro-optic comb with periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides, spectrograph calibration below 400 nm was demonstrated for the first time. This approach leverages the strong quadratic nonlinearity of lithium niobate and sub-micron modal confinement to overcome dispersion and low pulse energy limitations, paving the way for enhanced calibration precision in next-generation astronomical spectrographs.



You don't know POBs?
POBs (Pizza-Optics-Beer) are monthly seminars organized by the student association EPFL Photonics Chapter.
A PhD or a postdoc gives a 20-minutes presentation about his/her research in photonics. Discussions continue informally around pizza and beers!
The event is free and open to anyone.


What do we at EPFL Photonics Chapter?
We bring together photonics enthusiasts on campus through a variety of events, including monthly pizza-optics-beer seminars, barbecues, hikes, annual photonics workshop at ForumEPFL...
All this with the financial support from EDPO, Optica, SPIE. and SwissPhotonics.


Join us at General Assembly!
The General Assembly is open to everyone. Joining EPC as a committee member is a great chance to have closer connections to your peers in academia and industry. As a member, you will have funding to invite speakers from around the world and organize social activities. You may also benefit from travel grants and registration fee waivers. 


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We thank the Doctoral Program in Photonics (EPDO), the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE.), Optica and SwissPhotonics for their support.