• Technical Conference:  23 – 26 September 2024
  • Science + Industry Showcase:   24 – 25 September 2024
  • Colorado Convention Center, Denver, Colorado, USA

Video Highlights

by Amy Sullivan


Written by Amy Sullivan, Laser Mom

Every year, the chairs for Frontiers in Optics record short videos discussing what they consider to be the highlights of their sessions. While many people these days prefer videos to reading the content, I am not a video person myself. With a baby at home, all my work is done out at a coffee shop or at the library or in a shared office (or while she is sleeping) and I somehow always forget my headphones.
 
For those of you who also prefer the written word, here are some summaries of the highlights that I listened to – there are many videos for the different sessions and I have only listened to a few so far.
 
Highlights
The highlights video gives an overview of the conference and some special networking events that you should know about when you start planning your trip.
 
I was interested in hearing the numbers (because I’m one of those numbers geeks – and let’s be honest, most of you are too). Donna Strickland, the FiO co-chair, tells us that there are 200+ invited talks, 500+ contributed talks, and that they expect well over 1000 attendees at the meeting. That’s quite a lot! It makes it a great meeting for networking, but with so many people, that takes a little planning to make sure you run into and chat with the people you want to talk to.
 
There are lots of students coming – this is a great way for them to meet their future colleagues in the field. For those of you who are new to big conferences, I am planning a blog entry on how to make the best of the experience. For now, take a look at the interesting networking activities available to you – there are student events and an OSA Network of Entrepreneurs Workshop (Tuesday morning) for helping you get started in your own business.
 
This year’s Minorities and Women in OSA (MWOSA) breakfast, which I recommend for everyone, is featuring Jennifer Kruschwitz. It sounds like she has taken a nontraditional path of being a student, then going into business, then returning to school and I am excited to hear about her experiences. Having taken a rather roundabout route myself (as I continue to do!), I think it’s great for students (and professionals) to hear how many different ways there are to be successful and follow the career that is best for you. This breakfast is open to all, takes place Monday morning before the plenary session, and you can sign up when you register for the conference. If you forgot to sign up then, email mwosa@osa.org to add this to your itinerary. This is always a great event!
 
Okay, on to the more technical stuff…
 
Integrated Optics
The main thrust of the integrated optics sections is, as usual, silicon based photonics. There is a lot of work done in this area and this year includes recent advances in this well established field. For those of you getting started in this work or wanting to learn more, there is a tutorial talk on Tuesday morning at 8 AM.
 
The other main topic in this session is on plasmonics and metamaterials. Mihaela Dinu, the subcommittee chair, mentions an exciting area in plasmonics this year in nanoantennas, devices used to couple light from free space or dielectric waveguides into plasmonic waveguides – that sounds cool! A quick search of the online conference program shows me that the majority of these papers will be Thursday afternoon, with a poster on this topic given on Tuesday mid-day as well.
 
Mihaela Dinu also mentions interesting work in bio-inspired photonic devices, which sounds really interesting. We can learn how silk is used in photonic devices on Monday afternoon.
 
Optical Design & Fabrication
The optical design and fabrication sessions include talks on holographic optics this year, including talks on digital holography and holographic displays. These talks will be on Monday afternoon.
 
Qiwen Zhan, the subcommittee chair for optical design and fabrication, also mentions a number of interesting topics in three dimensional optical structures and designs including nanoimprinting, smart plasmonics, and multiphoton absorption polymerization.
 
He mentions that there a number of great papers this year discussing optical design using unconventional polarizations. It sounds like there are going to be some really interesting contributed papers on this topic this year. There are two sessions – one Tuesday morning and one later that afternoon – to cover all of these talks.
 
 
One more thing that I did not learn from the videos (though it might be in one of them): Alfred Goshaw is joining the plenary session to talk about the Higgs Boson. Having just learned a lot about this from my blog writing, I am excited to learn more!
 
That’s all I have for today. I you want to hear more about what’s new and exciting in your field this year, watch the videos and peruse the online conference program.

Posted: 4 Sep 2012 by Amy Sullivan