Prof Tim Birks
Profile
Biographical Information
Tim Birks arrived at the University of Bath in 1996 and is now a Professor in the Physics Department. His studies of tapered optical fibres have been a good platform for understanding the formation and optical properties of fibre transitions, and the design and operation of waveguides with large contrasts in refractive index. Since 1994 he has been a pioneer of one such waveguide, the photonic crystal fibre, developing the original fabrication techniques. His work at that time was recognised by the award of a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. His research is based in the Centre for Photonics and Photonic Materials and his interests include the post-processing of PCFs and understanding their guidance mechanisms, as well as continuing to find new applications for tapered conventional fibres. He also teaches undergraduates within the Department of Physics. He was elected Fellow of the Optical Society of America in 2007.
Research Interests
I am interested in light propagation in tapered fibres and photonic crystal fibres, particularly the post-processing of PCFs, the tapering of conventional fibres, and the conceptual understanding of guidance mechanisms in index-guiding and bandgap-guiding PCFs. Further details can be found in the CPPM web pages.
Publications
Inam, F.A., Grogan, M.D.W., Rollings, M., Gaebel, T., Say, J.M., Bradac, C., Birks, T.A., Wadsworth, W.J., Castelletto, S., Rabeau, J.R. and Steel, M.J., 2013. Emission and nonradiative decay of nanodiamond NV centers in a low refractive index environment. ACS Nano, 7 (5), pp. 3833-3843.
Inam, F.A., Grogan, M.D.W., Rollings, M., Gaebel, T., Castelletto, S., Say, J.M., Bradac, C., Birks, T. A., Wadsworth, W. J., Rabeau, J.R. and Steel, M.J., 2013. NV center emission in a substrate free low index environment. Proceedings of SPIE, 8635, 86350F.
Dowson, M., Grogan, M., Birks, T., Harrison, D. and Craig, S., 2012. Streamlined life cycle assessment of transparent silica aerogel made by supercritical drying. Applied Energy, 97, pp. 396-404.
Wadsworth, W. J., Rollings, M., Bateman, S. A., Mosley, P. J. and Birks, T. A., 2012. Silica-air structures for optical fibres. In: 2012 14th International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON). IEEE.
Birks, T. A., Mangan, B.J., Díez, A., Cruz, J.L. and Murphy, D.F., 2012. "Photonic lantern" spectral filters in multi-core fibre. Optics Express, 20 (13), pp. 13996-14008.
Grogan, M. D. W., Heck, S. C., Xiao, L. M., England, R., Maier, S. A. and Birks, T. A., 2012. Control of nanoparticle aggregation in aerogel hosts. Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 358 (2), pp. 241-245.
Min, S.-S., Jovanovic, N., Gillingham, P., Lawrence, J., Trinh, C., Leon-Saval, S., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Fogarty, L., Birks, T.A., Roth, M.M. and Haynes, R., 2012. Multi-core fiber Bragg grating developments for OH suppression. In: Modern Technologies in Space- and Ground-based Telescopes and Instrumentation II, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1 July 2012. SPIE.
Amonkosolpan, J., Wolverson, D., Goller, B., Polisski, S., Kovalev, D., Rollings, M., Grogan, M. D. W. and Birks, T. A., 2012. Porous silicon nanocrystals in a silica aerogel matrix. Nanoscale Research Letters, 7, 397.
Haynes, R., Birks, T.A., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Cruz, J.L., Diez, A., Ellis, S.C., Haynes, D., Krämer, R.G., Mangan, B.J., Min, S., Murphy, D.F., Nolte, S., Olaya, J.C., Thomas, J.U., Trinh, C.Q., Tünnermann, A. and Voigtländer, C., 2012. Second generation OH suppression filters using multicore fibres. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, 8450, 845011.
Wadsworth, W. J., Knight, J. and Birks, T., 2012. State-of-the-art photonic crystal fiber. Optics and Photonics News, 23 (3), pp. 24-31.
Thomson, R.R., Harris, R.J., Birks, T.A., Brown, G., Allington-Smith, J. and Bland-Hawthorn, J., 2012. Ultrafast laser inscription of a 121-waveguide fan-out for astrophotonics. Optics Letters, 37 (12), pp. 2331-2333.
Bland-Hawthorn, J., Ellis, S. C., Leon-Saval, S. G., Haynes, R., Roth, M. M., Löhmannsröben, H.-G., Horton, A. J., Cuby, J.-G., Birks, T. A., Lawrence, J. S., Gillingham, P., Ryder, S. D. and Trinh, C., 2011. A complex multi-notch astronomical filter to suppress the bright infrared sky. Nature Communications, 2, 581.
Xiao, L., Birks, T. A. and Loh, W. H., 2011. Hydrophobic photonic crystal fibers. Optics Letters, 36 (23), pp. 4662-4664.
Xiao, L. and Birks, T. A., 2011. Optofluidic microchannels in aerogel. Optics Letters, 36 (16), pp. 3275-3277.
Sun, W., Yuan, M., Zeng, X. and Birks, T. A., 2011. Impact analysis of setting parameter of movable large-zone furnace fiber-tapering system to shape of tapered fibers. Zhongguo Jiguang/Chinese Journal of Lasers, 38 (7), 705005.
Wheeler, N. V., Grogan, M. D. W., Bradley, T. D., Couny, F., Birks, T. A. and Benabid, F., 2011. Multipass hollow core-PCF microcell using a tapered micromirror. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 29 (9), pp. 1314-1318.
Birks, T., Mangan, B., Diez, A., Cruz, J. L., Leon-Saval, S.-G., Bland-Hawthorn, J. and Murphy, D. F., 2011. Multicore optical fibres for astrophotonics. In: 2011 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe, 2011-05-22 - 2011-05-26, Munich.
Xiao, L. and Birks, T. A., 2011. High finesse microfiber knot resonators made from double-ended tapered fibers. Optics Letters, 36 (7), pp. 1098-1100.
Chen, L., Pearce, G. J., Birks, T. A. and Bird, D. M., 2011. Guidance in Kagome-like photonic crystal fibres I: analysis of an ideal fibre structure. Optics Express, 19 (7), pp. 6945-6956.
Thomson, R. R., Birks, T. A., Leon-Saval, S. G., Kar, A. K. and Bland-Hawthorn, J., 2011. Ultrafast laser inscription of an integrated photonic lantern. Optics Express, 19 (6), pp. 5698-5705.
Sun, W.-m., Yuan, M., Zeng, X.-j. and Birks, T. A., 2011. Theoretical shape analysis of tapered fibers using a movable large-zone furnace. Optoelectronics Letters, 7 (2), pp. 154-157.
Grogan, M. D. W., Heck, S. C., Hood, K. M., Maier, S. A. and Birks, T. A., 2011. Structure of plasmonic aerogel and the breakdown of the effective medium approximation. Optics Letters, 36 (3), pp. 358-360.
Xiao, L., Grogan, M. D. W., Wadsworth, W. J., England, R. and Birks, T. A., 2011. Stable low-loss optical nanofibres embedded in hydrophobic aerogel. Optics Express, 19 (2), pp. 764-769.
Wadsworth, W. J., Grogan, M. D. W., Xiao, L. M., Rollings, M. D., England, R. and Birks, T. A., 2011. Aerogel-enhanced tapers and fibres. In: 2011 IEEE Winter Topicals, WTM 2011. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Computer Society, pp. 193-194.
Wheeler, N. V., Grogan, M. D. W., Wang, Y. Y., Murphy, D. F., Birks, T. A. and Benabid, F., 2011. Large core photonic microcells for coherent optics and laser metrology. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, 7949, 794906.
Birks, T. A., Mangan, B. J., Diez, A., Cruz, J. L., Leon-Saval, S. G., Bland-Hawthorn, J. and Murphy, D. F., 2011. Multicore optical fibres for astrophotonics. In: 2011 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe and 12th European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO EUROPE/EQEC). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE.
Edwardson, C. J., Grogan, M. D. W., Birks, T. A. and Coleman, P. G., 2011. Positron and positronium studies of silica aerogel. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 262 (1), 012018.
Thomson, R. R., Birks, T. A., Leon-Saval, S. G., Kar, A. K. and Bland-Hawthorn, J., 2011. Ultrafast laser inscription of an integrated multimode-to-single-modes waveguide transition for astrophotonics. In: 2011 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe and 12th European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO EUROPE/EQEC). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE.
Birks, T., Diez, A., Cruz, J. L., Leon-Saval, S.-G. and Murphy, D. F., 2010. Fibres are looking up: optical fibre transition structures in astrophotonics. In: Frontiers in Optics, 2010-09-30, Rochester.
Birks, T. A., Bird, D. M., Benabid, F. and Roberts, P. J., 2010. Strictly-bound modes of an idealised hollow-core fibre without a photonic bandgap. In: 36th European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communication. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE.
Allington-Smith, J. R., Birks, T. A., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Cunningham, C. R., Dagupta, S., Haynes, R., Garcia, P. J. V., Kar, A. K., Andreas, K., Kern, P. Y., Labadie, L., Lawrence, J. S., Le Coarer, E. P., Roth, M. M., Minardi, S., Sharples, R. M. and Thomson, R. R., 2010. Defining requirements and identifying relevant technologies in Astrophotonics. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, 7739.
Birks, T. A., Grogan, M. D. W., Xiao, L. M., Rollings, M. D., England, R. and Wadsworth, W. J., 2010. Silica aerogel in optical fibre devices. In: 12th International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks, ICTON 2010. IEEE.
Wheeler, N. V., Grogan, M. D. W., Light, P. S., Couny, F., Birks, T. A. and Benabid, F., 2010. Large-core acetylene-filled photonic microcells made by tapering a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. Optics Letters, 35 (11), pp. 1875-1877.
Bland-Hawthorn, J., Lawrence, J., Robertson, G., Campbell, S., Pope, B., Betters, C., Leon-Saval, S., Birks, T., Haynes, R., Cvetojevic, N. and Jovanovic, N., 2010. PIMMS: Photonic integrated multimode microspectrograph. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, 7735, 77350N.
Birks, T., Grogan, M., Xiao, L., Rollings, M., England, R. and Wadsworth, W., 2010. Silica aerogel in optical fibre devices. In: 12th International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks, ICTON 2010, 2010-06-27 - 2010-07-01, Munich.
Li, Y. F., Bird, D. M. and Birks, T. A., 2010. Bend loss in all-solid bandgap fibers revisited. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 28 (9), pp. 1368-1372.
Xiao, L., Grogan, M. D. W., England, R., Wadsworth, W. J. and Birks, T. A., 2010. Aerogel package for fused fibre couplers. In: Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference: 2010 Laser Science to Photonic Applications, CLEO/QELS 2010. New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Xiao, L., Grogan, M. D. W., England, R., Wadsworth, W. J. and Birks, T. A., 2010. Gas sensing with a sub-micron tapered fibre embedded in hydrophobic aerogel. In: Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference: 2010 Laser Science to Photonic Applications, CLEO/QELS 2010. New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Wheeler, N. V., Grogan, M. D. W., Light, P. S., Couny, F., Birks, T. A. and Benabid, F., 2010. Large core acetylene-filled photonic microcells made by tapering the hollow-core fiber. In: Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference: 2010 Laser Science to Photonic Applications, CLEO/QELS 2010. New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Grogan, M. D. W., Rollings, M. D., Xiao, L., Wadsworth, W. J., England, R., Maier, S. A. and Birks, T. A., 2010. Plasmonic aerogel doped with gold nanoparticles. In: Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference: 2010 Laser Science to Photonic Applications, CLEO/QELS 2010. New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Grogan, M. D. W., Leon-Saval, S. G., England, R. and Birks, T., 2010. Silica aerogel core waveguide. Optics Express, 18 (21), pp. 22497-22502.
Rollings, M. D., Grogan, M. D. W., Xiao, L. M., England, R., Birks, T. A. and Wadsworth, W. J., 2010. Supercontinuum generation in tapered fibres embedded in silica aerogel. In: Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference: 2010 Laser Science to Photonic Applications, CLEO/QELS 2010. New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Delgado-Pinar, M., Li, Y., Bird, D. M., Birks, T. A. and Wadsworth, W. J., 2010. Third harmonic generation in uniform fibre nanotapers via intermodal coupling. In: Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference: 2010 Laser Science to Photonic Applications, CLEO/QELS 2010. New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Wheeler, N. V., Grogan, M. D. W., Bradley, T. D., Couny, F., Birks, T. A. and Benabid, F., 2010. Ultra-high reflectivity hollow core PCF microcell using a tapered micro-mirror. In: Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference: 2010 Laser Science to Photonic Applications, CLEO/QELS 2010. New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Sun, W. M., Liu, X. Q., Chai, Q., Zhang, J. Z., Fu, F. H., Jiang, Y. and Birks, T. A., 2009. Mode field converter based on embedded photonic crystal fiber. Chinese Optics Letters, 7 (10), pp. 921-923.
Xiao, L. M., Grogan, M. D. W., Leon-Saval, S. G., Williams, R., England, R., Wadsworth, W. J. and Birks, T. A., 2009. Tapered fibers embedded in silica aerogel. Optics Letters, 34 (18), pp. 2724-2726.
Chen, Z., Xiong, C., Xiao, L. M., Wadsworth, W. J. and Birks, T., 2009. More than threefold expansion of highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber cores for low-loss fusion splicing. Optics Letters, 34 (14), pp. 2240-2242.
Birks, T. A., Grogan, M. D. W., Chen, Z., Xiao, L. M., Leon-Saval, S. G., Xiong, C. and England, R., 2009. Modifying photonic crystal fibres. In: 2009 14th Optoelectronics and Communications Conference. New York: IEEE, pp. 96-97.
Birks, T., Grogan, M., Chen, Z., Xiao, L., Leon-Saval, S.-G., Xiong, C. and England, R., 2009. Modifying photonic crystal fibres. In: 14th Optoelectronics and Communications Conference, 2009-07-13 - 2009-07-17.
Nandi, P., Chen, Z., Witkowska, A., Wadsworth, W. J., Birks, T. A. and Knight, J. C., 2009. Characterization of a photonic crystal fiber mode converter using low coherence interferometry. Optics Letters, 34 (7), pp. 1123-1125.
Yao, L., Birks, T. A. and Knight, J. C., 2009. Low bend loss in tightly-bent fibers through adiabatic bend transitions. Optics Express, 17 (4), pp. 2962-2967.
Couny, F., Roberts, P. J., Birks, T. A. and Benabid, F., 2008. Square-lattice large-pitch hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. Optics Express, 16 (25), pp. 20626-20636.
Birks, T., 2008. Photonic bandgap fibres. In: 34th European Conference on Optical Communication, 2008-09-21 - 2008-09-25, Brussels.
Witkowska, A., Leon-Saval, S. G., Pham, A. and Birks, T., 2008. All-fiber LP_11 mode convertors. Optics Letters, 33 (4), pp. 306-308.
Amezcua-Correa, R., Leon-Saval, S. G., Gerome, F., Birks, T. and Knight, J., 2008. Control of surface modes in hollow-core bandgap fibers. In: Photonic Crystal Fibers II, 2008-04-09, Strasbourg.
Amezcua Correa, R., Gerome, R., Leon-Saval, S., Broderick, N. G. R., Birks, T. A. and Knight, J. C., 2008. Control of surface modes in low loss hollow-core photonic bandgap fibers. Optics Express, 16 (2), pp. 1142-1149.
Leon-Saval, S. G., Birks, T. A., Witkowska, A., Ke, L. and Wadsworth, W. J., 2008. Post-processing and tapering of PCFs. In: IEEE/LEOS Winter Topical Meeting Series, 2008-01-01.
Couny, F., Roberts, P. J., Benabid, F. and Birks, T. A., 2008. Square-Lattice Large-Pitch Hollow-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber. In: 2008 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics & Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference. Vol. 1-9. IEEE, pp. 913-914.
