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Months 0 - 6

Integration into the lab environment and activities
Training dedicated to structured soft materials & components and liquid crystals optics
Involved in an ongoing international collaborative project, fabrication and optical characterization of free-form nanostructured 3D laser-printed structures to control the light flow and spin, towards the development of integrated photonic devices.
The optical characterization of the fabricated nanostructured micro-optical components has successfully completed and the corresponding publication has been accepted [Link]
Initiated a liquid crystal (LC) based optomechanical basic research project. Work still in progress with collaborative actions

Initiated specific actions to the project’s technical objectives and started working towards the LC-based spatial modulations of light beams
Studies lead to unveiling a novel observation of self-focusing of a Gaussian beam in a nematic liquid crystal slab.
Results have been identified as impactful as being a manifestation of non-linear spin-orbit interaction and refer to an emergent topic in the optics & photonics community
A publication on the obtained results, which encompass both experimental and theoretical developments, is under preparation for the dissemination

Initiated cholesteric liquid crystals (ChLC) and phase modulation of the Bragg-reflected optical field towards the foundations of the project goal.
Studied several ChLC systems in collaboration with a group from Kent State University, USA) and collaborators from the University of Montpellier in France, and optimized the appropriate ChLC candidate
Characterization of the unique ChLC sample for phase modulation has started in an interferometric set-up in order to precisely calibrate the phase modulation capabilities of the Bragg-reflected beam as an external voltage is applied to the sample.
The samples appeared to be inhomogeneous that do not produce measurable interference patterns. We feedback to the collaborator to prepare homogeneous samples at least on the scale of beam size.

Initiated multiple parallel projects to maximally utilize the waiting period for the arrival of the next set of samples,
- Bi-mode Bi-wavelength devices for super-resolution singular imaging
- Light-matter interactions in Biological soft matters are the projects
After many trials, our collaborator from the USA has developed a preparation protocol to increase the homogeneity of the ChLC samples.
Samples are characterized and observed the relationship between the geometric phase modulation and the applied electric field
Realization of the first pixel of the anticipated polychromatic Bragg-Berry Spatial light modulator.