Prof. Fetah Benabid laboratories span over 250 sqmeters of total lab and are located in the CNRS-University of Limoges joint research institute Xlim, at the premises of “Faculté des Sciences et Techniques”, University of Limoges, Limoges, France. The GPPMM lab comprises several state-of-the-art facilities for micro-structured optical fiber design, fabrication and post-processing. In particular, a specific chain is dedicated to the hollow-core fiber technology (including the photonic bandgap and the novel inhibited coupling Kagome guidance mechanism), strengthening its position of world-leader and pionner. Among the facilities we count:
(1) Two drawing fiber towers for PCF technology. One for preform cane drawing and the second for fiber drawing because the fabrication method is based on the « stack and draw » technique.
(2) Fiber pre-preparation room for glass fusion, staking, stocking, baking…
(3) A full system for fiber linear characterization comprising supercontinuum white light source, optical spectrum analyzers, low coherence interferometer for dispersion measurement.
(4) Fiber post-processing comprising splicer and tapering rigs. Several work stations are directly dedicated to the hollow-core fibers technology for splicing, tapering, end-capping, gas-filling but also making the photonic micro-cell (PMC) commercialized by our spin-off GLOphotonics.
(5) Two software packages of fiber mode solvers for the fiber design and characterization.
(6) Several state-of-the-art lasers including high-power CW and high-energy ultrafast lasers.
In addition, the GPPMM is a major player in the activity of the technological and instrumental platform at Xlim called "PLATINOM" which includes also two other fiber towers for soft-glass and hybrid materials. The facilities are supplemented by a measuring profile of refractive index of the fibres, a system for measuring the chromatic dispersion, a scanning electron microscope and a clean room for nano-structuring and characterization.