Robert Halir received the MSc in Telecommunications Engineering with first-class honors from Málaga University (Spain). In the same year, he was awarded a FPU scholarship to carry out his thesis in silicon photonics. His worked focused on the design and characterization of an integrated optical reflectometer, for which he received his PhD in 2010 from the University of Málaga. He has been a visiting scientist at several leading photonics group, such as the "Intec-Imec" group in Ghent (Belgium), the "Gaeta" group in Cornell (United States), and the "Opto-electronic devices group” at the NRC in Ottawa (Canada). Currently he is an assistant professor at Málaga University, as well as a researcher at the Andalusian Institute for Nanomedicine and Biotechnology (BIONAND) in the Photonics and Radiofrequency Laboratory (Nanodiagnostics Area). Dr. Halir’s research currently focuses on high performance silicon photonic devices, including ultra-broadband couplers, highly efficient fiber-to-chip couplers and photonic biosensors.

Publications of interest

• R. Halir, L. Vivien, X. Le Roux, D.-X. Xu and P. Cheben,
  Direct and sensitive phase read-out for integrated waveguide sensors, Photonics Journal, Vol 5, p. 6800906, 2013
• R. Halir, A. Maese-Novo, A. Ortega-Moñux, I. Molina-Fernández, J.G.Wangüemert-Pérez, P. Cheben, D.-X. Xu, J. H. Schmid, and S. Janz,
  Colorless directional coupler with dispersion engineered sub-wavelength structure, Optics Express, Vol. 20, pp. 13470-13477, 2012
• Robert Halir, Yoshitomo Okawachi, Jacob S. Levy, Mark A. Foster, Michal Lipson, and Alexander L. Gaeta,
  Ultrabroadband supercontinuum generation in a CMOS-compatible platform, Optics Letters, Vol. 37, pp. 1685-1687, 2012
• R. Halir, G. Roelkens, A. Ortega-Moñux, J. Wangüemert-Pérez,
  High performance 90 hybrid based on a silicon-on-insulator multimode interference coupler, Opt. Lett., Vol. 36, pp. 178-180, 2011
• R. Halir, P. Cheben, J. H. Schmid, R. Ma, S. Janz, D.-X. Xu, A. Densmore, J. Lapointe, and í. Molina-Fernández,
  Nano-structured fibre-to-chip grating coupler for bio-sensing applications, Imaginenano, April 11-14 2011, Bilbao, Spain
• Robert Halir, Pavel Cheben, Siegfried Janz, Dan-Xia Xu, íñigo Molina- Fernández, and Juan G. Wangüemert-Pérez,
  Waveguide grating coupler with subwavelength microstructures, Optics Letters, Volume 34, pages 1408-1410, May 2009
• Robert Halir, A. Ortega-Moñux, í. Molina-Fernández, J. G. Wangüemert-Pérez, Pavel Cheben, Dan-Xia Xu, Boris Lamontagne, and Siegfried Janz,
  Integrated Optical Six-Port Reflectometer in Silicon-on-Insulator, IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, Volume 27, pages 5405-5409, December