Dr. Olga Caballero Calero got her degree in Physics in June 2002, in the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, with a special orientation in Optics and Structure of the Matter. Then, she started to work as a PhD student in the “Nonlinear Optics Group” of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid under the direction of Prof. Mercedes Carrascosa and Dr. Ángel García Cabañes. In this period she made two stays abroad, one in the Photonics Center of Boston University (USA) and another in the group of Prof. Buse in the University of Bonn(Germany). In June 2007 she obtained an European PhD in Physics with a work entitled “Nonlinear Optical Waveguides in LiNbO₃ and Periodically Poled LiNbO₃”.

After that, she has worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Optics Group of the Accelerator (Centro de Microanálisis de Materiales) of the Unversidad Autónoma de Madrid, (1/10/2007 to 30/09/2008), studying the fabrication, optimization and characterization of optical waveguides by means of swift-ion beam irradiation. Then she moved to France, where she worked at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique del’Observaoire de  l’Université de Grenoble (1/10/2008 to 21/03/2010). There she joined a project devoted to the development of optical waveguides for Stellar Interferometry. Since May 2010 she holds a post-doctoral contract Jae-Doc in the group of Thermoelectric Materials in the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Madrid (Spain).

Research fields.Thermoelectric Nanowires: Fabrication of nanowire arrays of thermoelectric materials via electrodeposition. Development of holographic lithography membranes that will be used as matrices for the growth of the nanowires. Morphological characterization of these structures with Scanning Electron Microscopy, Raman Microscope, Atomic Force Microscope, etc.

Integrated optics in the search of extraterrestrial planets: Waveguide fabrication for optical wavelengths interesting in astrophysics research (mid- infrared), infrared characterization of optical devices, device design, such as interferometers, spectrophotometers, etc.

Study of optical properties in LiNbO3 optical waveguides: Optical waveguide fabrication via Proton Exchange, swift ion irradiation and metal in-diffusion. Characterization of the index profile, optical damage, photovoltaic currents, optical losses, absorption, nonlinear coefficients, etc.

Periodic poling of LiNbO3 optical waveguides: Electric field periodic poling (photolithography and experimental setup) and characterization of the ferroelectric domain structure fabricated (Light diffraction and chemical etching) in order to obtain devices for second harmonic generation via quasi-phase matching in these structures.

Ion beam techniques: Material modification with ion beam implantation and irradiation in order to obtain holographic and nonlinear optical waveguides and nanostructured devices. Ion beam techniques for materials characterization (RBS, ERDA, etc)