Coupling light into a guided Bloch surface wave using an inversely designed nanophotonic cavity.
Tang et al., 2024. Applied Physics Letters.
The Green Access pre-print version of the article is available here on the RAVEN Zenodo community.
Quantum-Inspired Approaches for Bloch Surface Wave-Based Sensing explores the development of Bloch Surface Wave (BSW)-based optical sensors for the highly sensitive detection of atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gases across the visible to short-wave infrared (VIS-SWIR) spectral range. The work presents a dielectric multilayer sensing platform based on the Kretschmann configuration, using transfer matrix modelling to investigate wavelength- and angle-dependent BSW excitation. The study demonstrates how shifts in optical reflectance can be used to detect changes in analyte refractive index and discusses how quantum-inspired metrology approaches could further improve measurement resolution and limits of detection. The research supports the RAVEN project’s objective of developing next-generation photonic sensors for environmental monitoring.
Presented by: The poster was presented by Dr Akshata Shenoy (co-authors: Konrad Schlichtholz and Łukasz Rudnicki) from the International Centre for Theory of Quantum Technologies (ICTQT), University of Gdańsk.
Conference: The poster was presented during QUANTUMSPEEDUP 2026, held at the University of Gdańsk, Poland, on 12–13 February 2026, as part of the SpeedTalks / Poster Session (Part III).
cRCWA: A New Open-Source Software for Photonics presents the development of cRCWA, a free, open-source C++ implementation of the Rigorous Coupled Wave Analysis (RCWA) method for modelling and simulating a wide range of photonic structures. The software supports one-, two- and three-dimensional periodic systems, as well as non-periodic structures through the Aperiodic Fourier Modal Method (AFMM), providing researchers with a flexible alternative to commercial simulation tools. The poster highlights the software’s application within the RAVEN project, where it is used to model ion-exchanged glass waveguides and predict bending losses in the double-spiral waveguide sensor developed for evanescent-wave gas sensing. It also demonstrates the software’s capability to analyse Bloch modes in one-dimensional photonic crystals, illustrating its versatility for advanced photonics research. The project has been released as open-source software to encourage collaboration and wider adoption within the photonics community.
The full source code is available for free under the GPL v3 license: https://github.com/cRCWA/cRCWA
Presented by: The poster was presented by Dr Davide Bucci (co-authors: Jérôme Michallon and Lionel Bastard) from CROMA (Centre for Radiofrequencies, Optics and Micro-Nanoelectronics of the Alps), Université Grenoble Alpes, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS and Grenoble INP, France.
Conference: The poster was presented at Optique BFC 2026, the French national optics conference, held in Dijon, France, from 6-10 July 2026.
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