Publications by Isabelle Dicaire

Exploring the use of native spider silk as an optical fibre for chemical sensing

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

A spider uses up to seven different types of silk, all having specific functions, as building material, weapon and sensory organ to detect the presence of preys on its web. Recently, scientists have put under the limelight the extraordinary properties of t ...

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2018

From Spider Webs to a Biomimetic Optical Fibre Sensor

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

Can we use spider silk threads as natural, biological optical fibre sensors? In this communication, we will see how we can harness the optical properties of spider dragline silk and use it for sensing. ...

2018

Towards a novel "silky" way to detect chemical species using spider threads

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

Silk possesses extraordinary properties that scientists are currently working hard on harnessing. Amongst them, this primeval material has shown early potential of having excellent optical properties. Through a regeneration process, it is possible to obtai ...

2016

Weaving our way towards a new generation of ﬁbre-optic chemical sensors based on spider silk

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

From the spider’s perspective, silk is not only a building material but also a safety net, a weapon and a sensory organ to detect the presence of preys on its web. Indeed, this primeval material has been shaped over hundreds of millions of years by spiders ...

Ieee2016

From spider webs to a fibre-optic chemical sensor

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

From the spider’s perspective, silk is not only a building material but also a safety net, a weapon and a sensory organ to detect the presence of prey on its web. For scientists, dragline silk - directly extracted from spiders - is a tough, biodegradable a ...

2016

Towards a new generation of fibre-optic chemical sensors based on spider silk threads

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

A spider uses up to seven different types of silk, all having specific functions, to build its web. For scientists, native silk - directly extracted from spiders - is a tough, biodegradable and biocompatible thread used mainly for tissue engineering and te ...

Ieee2016

Spider silk: a novel optical fibre for biochemical sensing

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

Whilst being thoroughly used in the textile industry and biomedical sector, silk has not yet been exploited for fibre optics-based sensing although silk fibres directly obtained from spiders can guide light and have shown early promises to being sensitive ...

SPIE2015

Shedding light on the optical properties of spider silk fiber

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

Optical characterisation of a Nephila edulis spider dragline silk is performed. The silk fiber transmits light up to 1400 nm with a propagation loss of ∼9 dB/cm and birefringence of 8×10−3 measured at 1302 nm. ...

IEEE2015

Fabrication of all-fibre gas reference cells for laser frequency stabilization

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire

2014

Optical Gas-Phase Frequency References Based on Photonic Crystal Technology : Impact of Slow Light on Molecular Absorption

Isabelle Dicaire

Optical frequency references are devices providing well-defined and stable optical frequency responses to incoming radiation for applications such as high-precision spectroscopy and optical fibre communications. To stabilise the emission frequency of laser ...

EPFL2012