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December 2019 - What a year !
2019 has been a very important year for the teams with many newcomers and projects.
First, we have 5 new team members:
Camille Petite (PhD student)
Olivier Hector (Technician)
Riley Shurvinton (Ph.D. student)
Janis Zideluns (Ph.D. student)
Richard Verrone (Ph.D. student)

Thanks to these new people, we will be able to develop new competences on high energy lasers coatings, colored coatings, optical monitoring or coatings with high optical non-linearities.
In addition, 2019 has been also fruitful for new projects including 3 new Research and Technology project funded by CNES, 2 new European projects (GREAT and IMPULSE), new ANR projects (with Laboratoire Huber Curien, with University of Nice or with ILM team at Institut Fresnel). Finally, we have continued to provide industrial partners with state-or-the-art optical filters. With so many ongoing activities, 2020 will be a very busy year !

November 2019 - Labtop meeting
On November the 6th 2019, we had our first Labtop team meeting at CILAS. During this half day, we discussed the goals of the Labtop and had presentations of the new Ph.D. students (Marin Fouchier, Camille Petite, Paul Rouquette) about their starting research activities on scattering, high energy lasers coatings and coatings for emissivity control. Labtop is the result of an agreement that was signed between Institut Fresnel (AMU, CNRS, ECM) and CILAS and aiming at developing new knowledge on CILAS strategic topics. Labtop was created 6 years ago and has proven its high relevance for both the academic and industrial partners.

November 2019 - ITN GREAT project consortium meeting

On November the 14th 2019, we welcomed at Institut Fresnel the H2020 ITN GREAT consortium for the first meeting with nearly all the 15 Ph.D. students that were hired within this project. This projet aims at developing resonant grating structures for the developement of various lasers with unprecedented performances. Institut Fresnel is in charge of developing thin-film structures and testing and improving them from the point of view of laser damage threshold. In June 2020, a spring school will be organized in Frankfurt for teaching the early-stage researchers with the basics of the various technologies that will be implemented throughout the project.

October 2019 - Renatech Dépôts days

On October 3rd and 4th 2019, we organized at Institut Fresnel the Renatech Dépôts days. Renatech is a CNRS-related structure coordinating the work the main academic technological French platforms. During these days, we welcomed the coating experts of these platforms to present and share their developments and knowledge on coatings for various applications. We organized a visit and a demonstration of the machines that are installed within the Espace Photonique. During these two days there were also 13 presentations (including a presentation on the applications of coatings on plastics given by Ziyad Elalamy from Savimex) and posters sessions. These days were sponsored by Bühler.

October 2019 - Ph.D. Defense Antoine Bourgade
Antoine Bourgade defended his Ph.D. Thesis entitled "Photosensitive thin-films for the fabrication of diffractive optical elements and spatially structured optical interference filters" on Friday, October 11th, 2019 at 10h30 in Pierre Cotton Room, Institut Fresnel, campus St Jérôme, Marseille.

This thesis, funded by DGA and AMU, was supervised by Dr Thomas Begou and Dr Julien LUMEAU.

Defense Committee :
M. Pierre AMBS, Université de Haute Alsace
M. Christophe MOSER, EPFL
Mme Annie PRADEL, Institut Charles Gerhardt
M. Alexandre JOERG, SAFRAN REOSC
Mme Karine MATHIEU, CNES
M. Philippe ADAM, DGA
M. Thomas BEGOU, Institut Fresnel
M. Julien LUMEAU, Institut Fresnel

June 2019 - OIC Conference 2019

The thin film research team of the Institut Fresnel has participated in the OIC 2019 conference in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, USA from 2nd to 9th of June 2019. The RCMO team presented 5 papers about the last R&D results of the team. This event was a great opportunity to meet with the thin-film research community and learn about their last developments.

May 2019 - Bühler HELIOS Open-house

On June 2019, Bühler inaugurated their new HELIOS 300 machine. This new machine based on Plasma-Assisted Reactive Magnetron Sputtering allows coating samples with diameters with up to 300 mm. An open-house was organized by Bühler to present this new system to their customers . As a long-time Bühler customer and HELIOS machine owner, we were invited to give a talk on our developments on "HELIOS/PARMS technology for the development of variable filters". This event was therefore a great opportunity to present our capabilities and expand our network with potential new collaborators.

April 2019 - New Optics Letters paper

We are very happy to announce our new paper in Optics letters which also appears an an Editors’ Pick:
J. Lumeau, F. Lemarchand, T. Begou, D. Arhilger, and H. Hagedorn, "Angularly tunable bandpass filter: design, fabrication and characterization", Optics Letters 44(7), 1829-1832 (2019).
https://www.osapublishing.org/ol/ab...

This paper is the result of a collaboration between the Bühler Company and the thin-film research team at Institut Fresnel. We want to thank our Friends at Bühler for the very fruitful exchanges and common developments.

October 2018 - ICSO Conference
The thin film research team of the Institut Fresnel has participated in the International Conference on Space Optics (ICSO) in Chania, Greece from 9th to 12th of October 2018. The RCMO team presented 2 papers on antireflection coatings and variable filters for space application. The developments that were presented are the results of CNES-funded projects.

May 2018 - SPIE Advances in Optical Thin Films VI

The thin film research team of the Institut Fresnel has participated in the SPIE Advances in Optical Thin Films VI conference in Frankfurt, Germany in May 2019. The RCMO team presented 9 papers about the last R&D results of the team.

April 2018 - ELI-NP project

We delivered in December 2016 various high performance mirrors for 515 nm with high reflectivity (> 99.95% in s and p polarization) and very good flatness (better than 15 nm peak to valley). These mirrors are used within the ELI-NP project. They have been recently integrated in the laser beam circulator and are performing as expected. These mirrors have been fabricated using Plasma Assisted Reactive Magnetron sputtering using the Bühler HELIOS machine. We want to thank our partners (CNRS-LAL and ALSYOM) or supporting these developments.

The picture is courtesy of Nicolas Beaugerard ALSYOM/SEIV/CNRS

March 2018 - Ph.D. Defense Severin Nadji

Severin Nadji will defend his Ph.D. Thesis entitled "Développement de systèmes de contrôle in situ des propriétés optiques de filtres interférentiels" on Tuesday, May 29, 2018 at 10h30 in Institut Fresnel, campus St Jérôme, Marseille.

The Thesis was supervised by Dr Thomas BEGOU, Dr Michel LEQUIME (RCMO Group) and Mrs Catherine Grèzes-Besset (CILAS).

Defense Committee :
Pascal PICART, Université du Maine
Antoine GOULLET, Université de Nantes
Anna SYTCHKOVA, ENEA
Antoine MOREAU, Université Clermont-Auvergne
Philippe DELAPORTE, Aix-Marseille Université
Michel LEQUIME, Institut FRESNEL
Thomas BEGOU, Institut FRESNEL
Catherine GREZES-BESSET, CILAS Ariane Group

Mach 2018 – Bühler SYRUSpro 710

The Thin Film Research team has just received a new plasma assisted electron beam deposition machine (Bühler SYRUSpro 710). This machine was partly financed by the city of Marseille. This machine will be dedicated to the deposition of thin films of infrared material and the development of layers based on unconventional materials such as phase change materials (e.g. chalcogenides). This machine will allow us to develop broadband anti-reflection coatings [1.5-15] μm (CNES R&T project), volume-structured components (DGA thesis) or optical metasurfaces (Multiwave CIFRE thesis).

December 2017 - Ph.D. Defense Mael Vignaux

Mael Vignaux defended his Ph.D. Thesis entitled "Development of optimized strategies for the monitoring of the deposition of optical thin-film filters" on Tuesday, December 5th, 2017 at 10h30 in Pierre Cotton Room, Institut Fresnel, campus St Jérôme, Marseille.

The Thesis was supervised by Dr Fabien LEMARCHAND, Dr Julien LUMEAU (RCMO Group) and Mrs Catherine Grèzes-Besset (CILAS).

Defense Committee :
 Angela PIEGARI , ENEA
 Franck DELMOTTE, Institut d’Optique
 Florence GARRELIE, Université Jean Monnet
 Harro HAGEDORN, Bühler
 Jean-Jacques SIMON, AMU
 Stefan ENOCH, CNRS
 Catherine GREZES-BESSET, CILAS
 Fabien LEMARCHAND, Centrale Marseille
 Julien LUMEAU, CNRS
Keywords : Optical thin films, virtual deposition process, automatic monitoring strategy creation, optical signal monitoring, signal processing.


October 2017 - Frontiers of Optical Coatings

The Thin Film Research Team attended the Frontier of optical coating (FOC) 2017 conference that was held at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China on October 22-26 2017 (http://foc.tongji.edu.cn/index.php?classid=5202). Three papers were presented on optical monitoring, stress and silver-based coating.



April 2017 - Color control, art and optical coatings

We have received the visit of Alexandre Echasseriau, a French designer, expert in combining artistic design and science. We already collaborated with him a few years ago on a similar topic (http://www.alexandreechasseriau.com/ACOUSTIC-DEFLECTOR), with the goal to control color by depositing multilayer coatings based on metal dielectric structures on various types of materials and surfaces. This collaboration is being reinitiated and new objects should be created very soon, confirming that high level science is not only limited to advanced applications.

April 2017 - OCLA Symposium Optical Coatings for Laser Applications 2017

The thin film research team of the Institut Fresnel has participated in the OCLA Symposium Optical Coatings for Laser Applications in Buchs (April 2017), Switzerland. A paper entitled: Optical interference filters with controlled spectral and spatial properties was presented. This symposium organized by NTB Interstate University of Applied Sciences of Technology in Buchs, RhySearch and Swiss Photonics was attended by more than 100 scientists and engineers expert in optical thin films and laser induced damages (http://www.swissphotonics.net/workshops/workshop-datenbank?3048).

February 2017 - University of Aschaffenburg

The Thin Film Research Team has initiated a new collaboration on ultraflat iridium-based mirrors for space applications with the University of Aschaffenburg in Germany. We will apply our broad expertise on stress-induced deformations in optical coatings to produce high quality X-ray mirrors.


December 2016 - ELI-NP project mirror fabrication
Within the framework of the ELI-NP project, the thin film research Team of the Institut Fresnel was in charge of the development and the fabrication of high performance mirrors to be included in the laser beam circulator and the laser beam delivery chain. In September 2016, we delivered to ALSYOM Company 80 mirrors with30 mm diameter, reflectivity higher than 99.95% at 515 nm in s and p polarization, AOI of 22.5° and with flatness better than lambda/30 peak-to-valley. It is worth noting that 20 of these mirror exhibited an additional controlled sag of +2 nm. In December 2016, we successfully delivered to CNRS-LAL, 42 additional mirrors with similar performances and larger diameters (50 and 75mm). All these mirrors were fabricated with the Bühler HELIOS machine.

October 2016 - ICSO Conference

The thin film research team of the Institut Fresnel has participated in the International Conference on Space Optics (ICSO) in Biarritz, France from 18th to 21st of October 2016. The RCMO team presented 3 papers about the last R&D results of the team including very recent results on pixelated filters and stress-induced deformation in complex coatings. This event is a major event in the space optics community that gathered 400 participants from 30 Countries (246 papers presented) and 26 Exhibitors.

September 2016 - EOSAM Conference

The thin film research team of the Institut Fresnel has participated in the European Optical Society Annual Meeting (EOSAM) 2016 in Berlin, Germany from 26th to 30th of septembre 2016. The RCMO team presented 1 paper on Volumetric diffractive optical elements in non-oxide photosensitive chalcogenide glass-based layers.



June 2016 - OIC Conference 2016

The thin film research team of the Institut Fresnel has participated in the OIC 2016 conference in Tucson, AZ, USA from 19th to 24th of June 2016. The RCMO team presented 7 papers about the last R&D results of the team. Michel LEQUIME also gave a short course (Sunday 19th of June 2016) on Optical Thin Films Metamaterials (SC435 - Nano-structured Materials: Fundamentals, Potential Applications and Practical Issues).

April 2016 - Manufacturing Problem Contest OIC 2016

The thin film research team worked over the last few weeks on the Manufacturing Problem Contest proposed by the organizers of the OIC 2016 conference. The objectives of this contest consisted in designing and fabricating a component with spectral dependence of the transmission and reflection in the 400-1000 nm range simulating a Moose head. One of the main difficulties of this problem was to find a design which is compatible with actual fabrication capabilities but also to fabricate this component that includes 104 dielectric layers with thickness from a few nanometers to a few hundred of nanometers and a thin metallic layer. The prototypes have been fabricated with the Bühler HELIOS machine. Prototypes submitted by a large number of other worldwide teams have been presented during the OIC 206 conference in Tucson, AZ, USA from 19th to 24th of June 2016. The results obtained by Institut Fresnel have been published (Optics Express 24(18), 20925–20937 (2016)).

March 2016 - National workshop on Optical Thin Film in Marseille

The RCMO team has organized with the club Couches Minces Optiques of SFO (Opical French Society), a national workshop on Optical Thin Film within the Institut Fresnel. About 50 people from the French Thin Film community participated in this workshop. Several invited talks have been given including a talk on the last developments of in-situ optical monitoring (Alfons ZOELLER, Bühler/Leybold Optics, Germany), a talk on metamaterial for optical wavelengths (Stéphane LAROUCHE, Duke University, USA) or a talk on the mirrors for the LIGO interferometer that were used for the first detection of gravitational waves (Laurent PINARD, LMA, Lyon). Thomas BEGOU from RCMO team also presented a paper on the last developments of complex optical interference filters that were recently fabricated using the Bühler HELIOS machine.

March 2016 - Ph.D Defense - Dragan Stojcevski
Dragan STOJCEVSKI defended his Ph.D. entitled Development of a multicriteria optical monitoring: Application to in situ determination of refractive indices on Thursday, March the 17th. His committee was composed with Franck CHOLLET, Stéphane LAROUCHE, Thierry BOSCH, Alfons ZOELLER, Catherine GREZES-BESSET, and Michel LEQUIME. His now Project Manager within the CILAS company in Marseille.

October 2015 - Ph.D. Defense - Alexandre Joerg
Alexandre JOERG defended his Ph.D. entitled Photosensitive thin films for the fabrication of diffractive optical elements and spatially structured optical interference filters on Monday, October the 26th 2015. His committee was composed with Kevin HEGGARTY, Xianghua ZHANG, Isabelle SAGNES, Michel DE LABACHELERIE, Michel LEQUIME, and Julien LUMEAU. He is now R&D Engineer at Valéo.

September 2015 - Participation at SPIE Conference

The thin film research team of the Institut Fresnel participated at SPIE Advances in Optical Thin Films V Conference in Jena, Germany from 7th to 10th of September 2015. The RCMO was first within the organizing committee of the conference (Conference Chairs: Michel Lequime, Institut Fresnel (France) H. Angus Macleod, Thin Film Center, Inc. (United States) Detlev Ristau, Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (Germany)) and has also presented 7 papers (including one invited talk) on various applications of optical thin film filters (complex filters for spatial applications, pixelated filters, metamaterials, in-situ optical monitoring, diffractive optical elements…)

June 2015 - Inauguration of the Espace Photonique

The Espace Photonique of the Institut Fresnel in Marseille was inaugurated on June, the 8th 2015, with the presence of the President of Aix Marseille Université (AMU), Yvon Berland and several partners including CNRS, Centrale Marseille, the City of Marseille, PACA Region and the Department of BdR. Delivered in 2014, the Espace Photonique is a project that included funding (2.5 M€) for the construction of 250 m² of cleanrooms as well 2 M€ for the acquisition of new state-of-the-art deposition machines.

The financing of the Espace Photonique was done within the Contrat de Plan État-Région. Financial supports of Europe, French government, local collectivities and AMU/CNRS/ECM were crucial to achieve this strategical project for the Institut Fresnel.

The thin film research team of the Institut Fresnel now benefits from a technological platform dedicated to the fabrication of optical interference filters which is unique in France. This new platform will allow the RCMO team to participate in a wide range of projects related to the fabrication of complex optical interference filters for industrial, space or academic projects.