Skip to main content

Laeticia Petit: Welcome to the new age of glass

Published on 14.6.2022
Tampere University
Laeticia Petit is Professor of Photonic Glasses at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences. She investigates the composition-structure-property relationships of optical glass-based materials.

“The main goal is to develop new glass compositions with tailored properties to suit specific application needs related to photonics, such as optical communication, optical data storage, new lasers and new photonic components and devices,” says Petit. 

Glass materials interest Petit as they are in everyday use and one of the oldest and widest-used materials. Made entirely of raw materials found in nature, glass is simple and does no significant harm to the environment. Glass is reusable and infinitely recyclable. Glass based materials have been and continue to be the key for our advanced technologies.

“2022 has been declared the International Year of Glass by the United Nations to underline the technological, scientific, economic, environmental, historical and artistic role of glass in our societies.”

Investigations by Petit and her group pave the way toward the use of glass for the development of new light sources and of new biophotonic sensing probes, for example. Another research activity is focused on the development of glass-ceramics. Petit and her group have for example prepared new glass-based composites with persistent luminescence. These composites could find application in bioimaging where they could help to avoid using X-Ray in certain situations.

“With technology becoming advanced, there is a constant need for new glass materials with specific properties to meet people’s and societies’ needs.”

Laeticia Petit's contact information