Session 12: Multimaterial Fibers

Multimaterial fibers are high-aspect ratio, filament-like structures integrating different materials at prescribed positions and with micro to nano-scale feature sizes. Such integrated fiber architectures enable to impart thin and flexible fibers with not only optical but also other functionality such as electronic, optoelectronic, mechanical, acoustic, or thermal. Their controllable geometry and flexibility make multimaterial fibers ideal candidates for next generation devices such as biomedical probes, surgery tools, robotics, flexible optoelectronics, sensing, advanced textiles and many more. Among the various functional materials integrated within fibers, glasses constitute an important building block owing to their processing attributes and the ability to widely tune their functional properties. A variety of soft- and high-T_g glasses have been used in the form of cladding, fiber core, thin-film, nanowires and microspheres. Whether glasses were directly co-drawn from a solid preform, melt spun, deposited onto a fiber post-draw, or realized any other way, their integration in novel confined and elongated geometries has triggered intense research.

This symposium aims to present and discuss the latest advances in the field of multimaterial fibers, particularly concerning the study and use of glassy materials within fiber-based devices. Contributions are welcomed both at the fundamental and applied levels, regarding processing, phase-change (crystallization) and engineering of new glasses within multimaterial fibers. We also encourage work investigating the tailoring and exploitation of glass functional properties, as well as technological applications of multimaterial fiber- and fabric-based devices.

Session Organizers

• Fabien Sorin, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, fabien.sorin@epfl.ch
• Sylvain Danto, University of Bordeaux, France, sylvain.danto@u-bordeaux.fr
• Alexander Stolyarov, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory, USA, sasha@affoa.org