Brussels Photonics Team

Photonics -the "Science-and-Technology-to-Harness-Light"- is a discipline that involves fundamental research of photons, of light-matter interactions, and the development of novel technologies and applications based on the unique properties of light. Photonics leverages these unique properties to probe, sense, transmit, process, display and store information, and to accomplish a multitude of original functionalities, which cannot be achieved otherwise. Photonics Research at B-Phot , under the leadership of Prof. Hugo Thienpont, has been active in the field of micro-photonics for more than 20 years. For his excellent contribution to research, he received a Methusalem Grant for Micro-Photonics. During this time the research domain has changed dramatically. In the early days of micro-photonics a research group was already considered to be very successful when it was able to develop an individual type of micro-optical components. Today however it is indispensable to have access to an entire technology food chain comprising modelling, measurement, and rapid-prototyping of different types of 3D micro-optical components in a variety of materials, before one can even consider assembling the specialty components into practical proof-of-concept demonstrators.