11:00 to 11:45
Soft glass fibres: versatility through glass composition, nano/micro-crystal incorporation and fibre structure


Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem
Univ. of Adelaide (Australia)

This talk reviews the versatility in properties enabled by soft glass fibers through controlling glass composition, doping luminescent species (rare earth ions, crystal particles) and using fabrication technologies enabling a diverse range of cross-sectional structures.

Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem is a Professor in Photonic Materials and Optical Fibres at the University of Adelaide. She is also Deputy Director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) at the University of Adelaide and Director of the Optofab Adelaide Hub at the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF).

Heike received the Ph.D. degree in 1994 at the University of Jena, Germany. She was with the University of Jena, Germany, 1988- 2000; with the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton, U.K., 2001-2004; and came to the University of Adelaide, Australia, in 2005. Her research focuses on the development of novel optical glasses, specialty optical fibres, hybrid glasses and fibres, for laser and sensing applications.

Heike has authored 480+ refereed journal and conference publications. She has been awarded ~AU$50M in competitive research grants. In 2001, she was awarded the Weyl International Glass Science Award and a prestigious Marie Curie Individual Fellowship of the European Union. In 2017, she became Fellow Member of The Optical Society of America (now Optica) “for ground-breaking science contributions to the field of optical glasses and fibres”. In 2023, she was awarded an ARC Laureate Industry Fellowship and a South Australian State Government Future Making Industry Fellowship.