Szymon Baczyński
supervisor: Katarzyna Rutkowska
The combination of rapidly developing technologies from the field of chemistry and the gaining popularity of photonics has led to the development of optofluidics. Microfluidic systems that exploit the possibilities offered by changing the parameters of light are increasingly used in biology and chemistry, but also in the area of photonics. The phenomena used in such systems include, e.g., changing the refractive index of the medium in which light propagates or of the cladding. In the course of research work in the area of my Ph.D., I am trying to fabricate microfluidic structures where a periodic change of refractive index is possible. To obtain such structures, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), well-known in chemistry, and liquid crystals (LCs), widely studied in photonics, are applied. By using appropriately designed electrodes, it is possible to control the orientation of liquid crystal molecules and thus modify the spatial distribution of the refractive index. For the structures to be tested in the systems with optical fibers, they must have a central channel with a diameter close to the fiber core. At this point, the minor channels that have been tested in experimental conditions are 12×10 micrometers. Technologies used for fabrications that have been explored so far range from 3D printing, and micromilling to photolithography, with a two-photon polymerization process planned to be used in the next step.