The leader of the research group Applied Photonics Group (APG), Prof. Joseba Zubia, started his research activities in the current field (Polymer Optical Fibres and Applied Photonics) in 1993 as a supervisor of a Ph.D. thesis. Since then, an ever growing research team coordinated by him has been carrying out an extensive research on the characteristics, possible applications and optimization of new types of POFs and related optical devices, such as POF-based optical amplifiers, lasers and sensors.

Nowadays, we collaborate with prestigious groups of the international scientific POF community. In addition, part of our research work is being carried out in cooperation with several techological centres and companies in order to develop prototypes for industrial applications based on optical sensors or requiring them, such as aircraft monitoring, for example. Our research projects and activities require a well equipped laboratory, which was created and it is being improved thanks to finantial support from our local institutions and from the European ones.

APG Research Group has at present 20 PhDs and 5 PhD students working in different areas:

Manufacture of microstrutured plastic optical fibers

Manufacture of active fiber optics

Interferometric fiber optic sensors based on Fabry Perot cavities and modal coupling for detection of chemical, biological and physical parameters.

Microfluidic Raman systems and hydrogels

Fiber optic sensors for aeronautical applications and structural health and turbine monitoring.

The group leader is Prof. Joseba Zubia. and the leaders of the aforementioned research lines are Prof. Joel Villatoro, Prof. David Novoa and Prof. Asun Illarramendi.