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Worldwide, volunteers from student associations and non-profit organizations carry out outreach activities with high school students in their classrooms. Most of the time, these activities highlight optical phenomena but do not provide information about the reality of researchers in companies and universities. To address this issue, Université Laval's OSA and SPIE student chapters set up a demonstration laboratory dedicated to outreach, located in a research center. In this paper, we list the advantages of this type of facility as well as the steps leading to the creation of the laboratory, and we give an overview of the demonstration laboratory.

We fabricated optical waveguides in fused silica by focusing femtosecond laser pulses with an axicon. With this technique, we also produced microholes by using chemical etching. The axicon, which is a conical lens, generates an optical beam with a transverse intensity profile that follows a zero-order Bessel function. Bessel beams produced by axicon focusing have a narrow focal line of a few micron width which is invariant along a long distance (>1 cm). By focusing femtosecond pulses with an axicon into fused silica, we induced permanent modifications over the extented focal line of the axicon without scanning axially the glass sample. The waveguides so fabricated exhibit low losses and no detectable birefringence due their excellent circular symmetry. By translating the glass sample during the inscription process, we have fabricated planar waveguides. Microfluidic channels were obtained by soaking the exposed samples into a HF solution.

It often takes one single event to interest teenagers in a topic that will become a passion or a career. It is in this spirit that the SPIE and OSA Student Chapters at Université Laval created the Photonic Games three years ago, to kindle an interest in teenagers towards studies and careers in optics. The activity, offered each year to more than a hundred grade 11 students, is divided in two parts. First, we offer a hands-on workshop in their classrooms about reflection, refraction, dispersion, birefringence and polarization. A few days later, all the students come to the Centre d'optique, photonique et laser (COPL) at Université Laval for a day of competition where a volunteer physics student accompanies each team of four students. Challenges are various to promote the qualities that make great scientists: creativity, teamwork, knowledge, inquisitiveness, self-confidence and perseverance. The first two editions of the Photonic Games have proven to be beneficial for the students, teachers and volunteers, and we endeavor to improve it as we construct on our experience with the past editions to fine-tune and improve the Photonic Games concept.

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