Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux d'Orsay

(i) Since PhD award (8 December 2004). In that period I have had one year of non-academic work (at 1.0 FTE) at Alcatel/Draka Comteq company.

(ii) Publications: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2007-7438

(iii) Research opportunities (academia & industry) : M. Lancry is a full Professor at the University of Paris Saclay. He obtains his PhD on 8 December 2004 in Physics of the Lasers, Atoms and Molecules lab (PhLAM) under the direction of M. Douay in France. This research lab is recognized as one of the best in the world for the UV fabrication of fiber Bragg Gratings in various optical materials. In 2005, he joined the consortium Alcatel/Draka Comteq in order to work in the “silica expertise group” as R&D researcher. In october 2006, he joined the University of Paris Sud as permanent associated professor. Since 2015, he is group leader of the MAP (Advanced Materials for Photonics) research group.

(iv) Full time Professor : Research and teaching activities of Prof. Lancry are related to a large range from glass elaboration up to the optical communications. This work in particular allowed him to look further into the fields of photonics, optical fiber manufacturing, laser irradiation effects on the microscopic and macroscopic properties of silica glasses as well as in physics-chemistry of silica-based glasses. This led to international recognition e.g. 7 invited book chapters and 38 invited conferences. His actual interest is the frontier knowledge of silica-based materials manufacturing and their nano/micro-structuration by means of various laser irradiations and this in order to create applications in photonics, polarimetry, optical telecommunication.

(v) Training and project management experience: M. Lancry has managed many grants including two European grants: FP7-PEOPLE-IIF (Femtonano) and FP7-PEOPLE-IRSES (e-FLAG) and 2 Seed funds projects towards Spin-Off creation in 2014 and 2016. He was also coordinating ANR Blanc project “FLAG” 2009-2013 with Bertrand Poumellec and ANR FLAG-IR 2019-2023. From the industrial point of view, M. Lancry has managed industrial contracts and is expert for many optical compagnies (Thorlabs, 3S technology, Avensys, Keopsys, Alcatel Submarine Networks and Draka Comteq/Prysmian). Since 2008, apart many regular graduate, master and engineer student’s supervision, M Lancry has already co-supervised 20 PhD students, 6 invited PhD students and 7 post-doctoral researchers. 

Our main objective is the understanding of the mechanisms of silica-based glasses interaction with photons, leading to permanent changes in the physical properties, which can be then used to develop applications in photonics. We have strong track record in fundamental studies regarding materials chemistry synthesis and characterization, silica-based glasses laser processing and more generally on laser-matter interaction in glasses. For example, our group is well known expert in UV laser glass processing and defect spectroscopy in a wide variety of silica-based glasses. We have published several papers on glass transformation kinetics, which leads to lifetime prediction for telecommunication companies. This led to international recognition with invited talks, consulting contracts for these companies and invited papers and book chapters in the UV photosensitivity field.

Our research activities over the last 10 years have thus unfolded in four  directions:

• Photosensitivity to IR femtosecond lasers silica-based glasses
• Photo-precipitation of micro / nanocrystals oriented by femtosecond laser in silicates
• Photosensitivity to UV radiation of silica-based optical fibers
• Dynamic evolution of physical quantities in disordered Media

Line-up: The composition of the MAP group evolves from year to year depending on the supports to finance students, post-docs, study engineers and foreign guests. For example, in 2024, the team consisted of a Professor (M. Lancry), CNRS reseach director (B. Poumellec), an A/Prof (M. Cavillon), 7 doctoral students and a postdoctoral fellow.

Highlights:

Fictive temperature reduction in optical fibers: I would also point out our studies on the reduction of losses in optical fibers via fictive temperature reduction, which leads to a review paper in Progress in Material Science (5-Year Impact Factor: 33.5).

Chirality, non-reciprocal writing, and circular optical properties: We discover chiral mechanical structures photo-induced in silica glass by a femtosecond laser linearly polarized. Recently circular optical properties and especially circular dichroism were reported in an invited paper to (Light: Science & Applications (13,6 impact factor) and one recent paper in Applied Physics Letters 110 (2), 021112 (2017).

Ultrafast silica oxide destabilization and nanogratings formation in various glasses: The dissociation of oxides under heating can vary from a few minutes to hours depending on the temperature. In 2010, we demonstrated that femtosecond laser could dissociate an oxide on a temporal scale of a fraction of picosecond over a spatial scale of a few 10's of nm (Laser Photonics Rev. 7, No. 6, 953–962 (2013), Impact factor 9.3). These scales are now on dimensions shorter than conventional relaxation scales and therefore we present evidence that light not only weakens the bond strength of the oxide but also displaces atoms leading to an out of equilibrium phase separation on a scale that is too short for normal thermo-mechanical relaxations. Applications can be numerous in fast material processing by producing nanoporous material, photonics by changing optical properties. For we exploit these properties to create a wide range of waveplates and recently we reported achromatic polarization rotator (Applied Physics Letters 107, 181111 (2015).

Oriented nano-crystallization in silica based glasses: In 2012 (Opt Lett. 37 (14), 2955-2957 (2012)), we demonstrate that LiNbO₃ crystals were space-selectively nucleated and grown in the bulk of silica-based glass by femtosecond laser irradiation at high repetition rate (typ. 300 kHz). Well-oriented crystals with their polar axis aligned with the laser scanning direction have been fabricated by manipulation of the temperature gradient in adjusting the laser parameters. This leads to tunable angular-dependent second-harmonic generation in glass by controlling femtosecond laser polarization as reported in J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 33, 741-747 (2016)

University Paris Saclay

09/2021 → Head of the Master2 MFA (Functionnal Materials and Applications)

Polytech Paris Saclay

09/2009 → Head of the PeiP2 Internships (90 students/year)

09/2009 → 09/2021 Co-head of the laboratory of materials chemistry

09/2009 → Head of the Interaction Laser-Matter Lab

09/2011 → Head of the Optical fiber lab laboratory

09/2013 → In charge of "Optical fibers: from manufacturing to applications" in PSO4A (students and apprentices 4th year, optronics)

09/2015 → In charge of "Glasses courses" at Polytech Paris Saclay (App5A mat: Apprentices 5th year, Materials science)

09/2015 → Educational leader of the 5th year Students of the Photonics and Optronics Systems department

09/2022 → Director of International Affairs at Polytech Paris Saclay

Students exchange network

2009 → FLAG "Polytech engineer school - students exhange network"

Since 2009 I have initiated a student exchange network around the mechanisms of laser interaction - material in the broad sense. This network started with my privileged research collaborators such as the University of Sydney and the ORC Southampton but also IAP (Jena, Germany) as well as another Australian university (Macquarie). Since 2015 the network has expanded considerably with Politecnico di Torino (Italy), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), IPHT Leipzig (Germany), COPL Laval (Canada), CSIC Madrid (Spain), EPFL (Switzerland).

1. Bilateral collaborations 

• iPL / Sydney University, Sydney, Australia; Program PAI FAST, PHC FASIC, ARC fellowship
  • J. Canning, K. Cook
• Key laboratory in silicate material / Wuhan Technology University, China; Program PAI PRA
  • Q. Liu, X. Zhao
• Optical Research Center / University of Southampton, Royaume-Uni; Program PAI Alliance
  • P. Kazansky
• MQ Photonics Research Centre / Macquarie University, Australia; FP7-IRSES-PEOPLE
  • A. Fuerbach, M. Withford
• COPL / Université Laval, Canada
  • M. Bernier
• Fibre Photonics group / National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
  • S. Mihailov
• Department of Material Chemistry / Kyoto University, Japan
  • Y. Shimotsuma
• Institute of Applied Physics / Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany; FP7-IRSES-PEOPLE
  • F. Zimmermann, S. Nolte
• Leibniz-IPHT / Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Jena, Germany
  • Martin Becker, Manfred Rothhardt
• DISAT -Dipartimento Scienza Applicata e Tecnologia / Polito Turino, Turin, Italy; 2 Twin Thesis
  • D. Janner, M. Ferrari

2. Collaboration networks

European network FP7-IRSES-PEOPLE e-FLAG (coordinator Matthieu Lancry)

The concept of e-FLAG is to collect the best researchers on the topic of the interaction of femtosecond laser with glasses for discussion and exchanges. Main objective is to train students and young researchers on one of the most promising new research field which is the 3D local shaping of linear and non linear optical properties in silica-based glasses; the knowledge of the expert being shared with the novices. The consortium is made up of 5 organizations chosen for their complementary skills and competences, necessary to carry out the foreseen project activities. Each partner cover a part of the subject, that is necessary to collect for achieving an overall understanding of the processes and applications potentialities.

• University Paris Sud, Bertrand Poumellec and Matthieu Lancry
• Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Stefan Nolte
• University of Sydney, John Canning
• Optoelectronics Research Centre, Peter Kazansky
• Macquarie University, Mick Withford

OPTOPHAB

In the last years, there have been growing interests in optical nanostructures for handling of light phase, polarization modulation and/or frequency conversion. Their use is still very limited due to the difficulty of manufacturing such nanostructures and the limited number of existing “nano-photonics functions” available for free space or guided optics. The disruptive manufacturing technology developed by the OPTOPHAB project, is based on the principles of Femtosecond Laser Direct Writing (FLDW) in transparent materials. FLDW is a precise sub-micrometric 2D and 3D micro/nanofabrication method that has been used in emerging industrial applications, but still faces serious challenges in speed scanning and in enabled components functionalization. OPTOPHAB is an ambitious project intended to go far beyond the state-of-the-art with expected improvement all along the value chain.

The main task is to develop 2D and 3D geometric phase optical elements with space-variant phase profiles imprinted in a single slab of transparent glasses. High quality and efficient ultrafast laser nanostructuring will be implemented to achieve a printable anisotropic material, combining the benefits of durability and optical quality of inorganic crystals with the manufacturability of liquid crystals. This will be offer at a fraction of production time and cost of the traditional technologies. Our ultimate goal is to provide a large community of users from industry, research and universities with the high-performance integrated flat optics that could replace conventional optics, and potentially offer compact devices generating beams with engineered polarization, phase and intensity with a competitive price.

ANR FLAG-IR (2019-2023)

FLAG-IR proposes to apply femtosecond laser 3D direct writing to create compact and low cost optical components in IR materials. In IR instrumentation, there is a need for miniaturized, low weight and low cost optical systems for civilian (domotics, smartphone, automobile) and military applications (vehicles steering, survey, weapons guidance, unmasking, countermeasure identification). The constraints on size and weight of optical systems are so demanding that traditional optical systems with a single optical axis are reaching their limits. Therefore, we propose bio-inspired multichannel architectures and integrating optical functions using planar optical components. In this field, new IR materials mainly gallo-germanate glasses (up to 5,5μm) and chalcogenide like Ge-Sb-S (up to 11μm) are excellent candidates for high-volume and low-cost production. In addition, 3D direct shaping by femtosecond laser enlarges the panel of optical functions we could encode into a small device.

UltraBragg (2017- ... )

Fiber Bragg grating sensors technology operating in extreme temperatures is a major technological breakthrough within the instrumentation for extreme environment. Its development and validation of innovation will meet the new needs of the industry by designing fiber micro-sensors that will be incorporated in particular materials and processes in the areas of engine air carriers (aeronautics), space (launchers, Eurocryospace) or the advanced manufacturing (e.g. 3D laser additive manufacturing of metal and ceramics parts, Multi-industrials). Having an innovative, reliable and robust instrumentation, based on Bragg gratings in optical fibers, for measurements in high temperatures (thermal measurements and / or mechanical deformations) will be an undeniable asset for industrial programs in the short and medium words, at the forefront of technological developments (engines of the future, laser assisted 3D synthesis, high power lasers, nuclear plants, steel) and requiring characterization tools in harsh environments for qualification processes and products. 

The UltraBragg project is to develop Fiber Optic sensors based on Bragg gratings capable of operating in extreme environments, especially at high temperatures (700-1500°C and potentially up to 1800°C in Sapphire fibers). Following very recent developments in CEA Saclay and in Australia, this technology is a recent technological breakthrough with already many fundamental and industrial applications. These sensors are being developed to measure the temperature and strain in extreme environments. This new Fiber Bragg grating technology joins the intrinsic advantages of FBG-based metrology such as the spectral multiplexing capabilities (multiple measurement points on a single optical fiber) combined with the electromagnetic immunity and this new property resistance to extreme temperatures, which interests actors of the Aerospace (aircraft engines), Advanced Manufacturing (3D laser additive manufacturing metal parts), optics (high power laser) but also steel industry, Nuclear (instrumentation of future reactors) and Space (launchers). 

Laser Oriented Cristallization in glasses (2010 - ... )

The controls of the molecular structure and of its arrangement define the final properties of the matter: the desired crystallized phase from a glass, the good symmetry of a crystallized like the right chirality product. This is particularly true in the photonics domain (integrated optics). The demand for optical integration is very large as the volume of exchanged information increased and the complexity of the treatment in the same time. However, several technological crucial locks prevent its development: creation of non-linear optical properties and rotatory powers with correct orientation. Usually, these properties are met in different materials through a chain of complex and rigid process but here, we can create them and the others required for integrated optics in a same block of glass using also the light. The tool for the solution is the use of high intense femtosecond laser focused in transparent matter. One idea is to show that centersymmetry or achirality can be broken at will, by unconventional managing of a new interaction mechanism working with such very brief pulsed laser and controlled by specific beam parameters. We want to demonstrate that we can use ultrafast laser light as a remote hand for exerting mechanical actions in matter in addition to high excitation of the matter, in order to control atomic arrangement of the material locally or molecular alignment, for creating or modifying optical or biological properties. The multidisciplinary approach of this project, in between optics and chemistry is based on fundamental properties of light accessible only in high intensity domain that combine high electron excitation, electromagnetic forces and chemical bonding.