Alessandro Tomasino, PhD Student in the Nonlinear Photonics group received a Mitacs PhD internship for his project “Tailoring few-cycle pulses: Terahertz time-domain differentiator”. The main technical objective of the project is the first demonstration and realization of a THz pulse Differentiator integrated device operating within the THz frequency range, devoted to real-time next generation signal-processing techniques.

Diego Caraffini, PhD Student in the Nonlinear Photonics group (in co-supervision with Prof. L. Razzari) received a Mitacs PhD fellowship for his project “Fully-coherent Terahertz Detection via a Biased Nonlinear Micro-slit”.   This project is concerned with the development of a novel commercial product based on the Air-Biased Coherent Detection (ABCD) scheme which will open up new perspectives for implementing innovative detection techniques for broadband terahertz detection (>12 THz). Indeed, today’s commercially available solutions are commonly limited to a narrow spectrum (<3-4 THz) and cannot be applied, e.g., to broadband spectroscopic detection.

Holger Breitenborn, previously Master Student in the Nonlinear Photonics group received a Mitacs PhD fellowship for his project on Terahertz based  “Teramometry” . This project is motivated by the fact that two out of five Canadians are expected to develop cancer and one out of four Canadians is expected to die from cancer. For the treatment of Melanoma, a dangerous skin cancer, plasmonic photo-thermal therapy can be applied for the precisely localized plasmonic heating of gold nanoparticles to kill cancer. Terahertz radiation can be used for precise temperature sensing and imaging of the cancer area and, thus, plasmonic heating can be tailored to exceed the critical temperature required to induce the controlled death of cancer cells.