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Leaders in the Field of Optics and Photonics Research and Industry to Convene at The Optical Society

PRESS RELEASE

08 October 2015



Leaders in the Field of Optics and Photonics Research and Industry to Convene at The Optical Society

WASHINGTON — Innovations from more than 740 scientific, technical and educational presentations will be highlighted during The Optical Society’s (OSA) 99th Annual Meeting, Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2015, being held 18 October - 22 October in San Jose, California, USA with Laser Science XXXI, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Laser Science (DLS), the meeting will cover the breadth of optical science and engineering in five days of cutting-edge content, as well as provide opportunities for networking and scientific exchange. Exhibits featuring leading optics companies will complement the in-depth educational programming and offer attendees a glimpse of the latest optics and photonics technologies and products.
 
WHAT: Frontiers in Optics 2015, The Annual Meeting of The Optical Society
WHERE: The Fairmont San Jose, San Jose, California, USA  
WHEN: Technical Conference: 18-22 October 2015 and Exhibition: 20-21 October 2015
 
Townes Symposium: Reminiscences- Scientific and Personal
Sunday, 18 October, 18:30 – 20:00
Regency Ballroom
 
Celebrate the extraordinary life of Charles Hard Townes, one of the foremost pioneers of quantum electronics in this symposium that will bring together colleagues from every step of the illustrious visionary’s prolific career.  Invited panelists will provide an overview of Towne’s extraordinary approach to research and teaching. This symposium will feature speaker, Paul Goldsmith of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories, Pasadena, California, USA.
 
FiO 2015 Exhibition
Tuesday, 20 October, 9:30 – 16:00; Wednesday, 21 October, 9:30– 14:00
Imperial Ballroom
 
FiO’s exhibit show floor features complimentary access to the latest products and innovations from more than 60 participating companies within the fields of lasers and optics. Industry leaders such as Fianium, Optimax Systems, Newport Corporation, Toptica Photonics and Thorlabs will be present. In addition to hearing the latest industry trends from company representatives in their booths, the exhibit includes educational programming from OSA’s Student Chapters and technical presentations during the FiO Poster Session. The exhibition is open to the public with a complementary registrion.
 
FiO Plenary Session and Awards Ceremony
Tuesday, 20 October, 8:00 - 9:30; Wednesday 21 October, 8:00- 9:30 
Imperial Ballroom
 
The FiO Plenary Session focuses on timely global issues, highlighting the broad range of optics uses and solutions. Along with award presentations, featured speakers this year include leaders in astrophotonics, gravitational wave physics, optical tomography and quantum information science.
 
Plenary Speakers:

 

  • Astrophotononics: Future Developments in Astrophysics and Instrumentation
    Joss Bland-Hawthorn
    University of Sydney, Australia
  • LIGO and the Coming Dawn of Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy 
    David Reitze
    Executive Director of Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory,
    Caltech, United States
Awards Ceremony:
 
  • Optical Coherence Tomography: Translating Technology to Clinical Practice 
    James G. Fujimoto
    MIT, United States
 
 
  • Trapped Ion Quantum Networks 
    Christopher Monroe
    Joint Quantum Institute and University of Maryland, United States
Technical Programming
Paper presentations from leading researchers around the world are divided into seven topical areas in optics, from biology and medicine to quantum electronics and optical communications. A sample of highlighted presentations includes:
 

Symposium on Photoreceptor Analysis and Single-cone-mediated Vision
Monday, 19 October, 8:00 – 10:00
Crystal Room
 
Twenty-five years ago detailed post-mortem ocular histology gave spectacular insight into the organization of cone and rod photoreceptor cells in the human retina. Subsequent progress with implementation of adaptive optics for aberration correction has made in-vivo analysis of single retinal cells feasible in both the healthy eye and in eyes affected by disorders. The same technologies allow vision to be explored at the fundamental limit set by the size and spacing of single photoreceptors and ganglion cells. This symposium will highlight milestones that have made these advances feasible with state-of-the-art technologies and address outstanding challenges for the implementation of improved diagnostic capabilities that not only will increase our understanding of the last optical steps of the visual process but also help combat vision loss.

       Invited Speakers:

           Christine Curcio, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
           Human Photoreceptor Topography - 25 Years and Looking Ahead
 
           Christopher Langlo, Medical College of Wisconsin, USA
           Single Cell Imaging In Photoreceptor Degenerative Disease
 
           Don Miller, Indiana University, USA 
           Waveguide Properties of Cone Photoreceptors
 
​           Austin Roorda, University of California Berkeley, USA
       
    Probing Human Spatial and Color Vision on a Cellular Scale
 
           *Symposium Organizer: Brian Vohnsen, University College Dublin, Ireland
 
Symposium on Optics for Global Health and Low Resource Settings
Monday, 19 October, 13:30 – 15:30
Crystal Room

2015 is the "International Year of Light," and this symposium accordingly highlights the tremendous impact that optical technologies can have on global health. Portable, accurate, and low cost light-based technologies have already demonstrated successes in screening and treatment for an array of pathologies in low resource settings. The potential of these technologies continues to grow with increased interest in engineering world health.   
  
       Invited Speakers:
         
          David Erickson, Cornell University, USA
          
Mobile Technologies for Personalized Diagnostics and Global Health

          Aydogan Ozcan, University of California Los Angles, USA 
          Democratization of Next-Generation Imaging, Sensing and Diagnostics Tools Through
          Computational Photonics


          Tomasz Tkaczyk, Rice University, USA
          
Low-Cost Optical Diagnostic Systems for Point of Care Applications

          Manu Prakash, Stanford University, USA
          Organismic Biophysics
 
         *Symposium Organizer: Melissa Skala, Vanderbilt University, USA

Symposium on Optical Remote Sensing for the Climate
Wednesday, 21 October, 13:30 – 15:30
Crystal Room
 
Optical sensing allows measurements of important climate-related parameters, such as greenhouse gas and aerosol densities, from both land and space-based platforms. The measurements are often made at wavelengths where technology is not as mature as in the visible and near-infrared region.  Efforts to measure these parameters place stringent demands on light sources (which often must be high power and single frequency), detectors (which must detect the faintest light levels at non-traditional wavelengths), and understanding of long-range propagation effects.  Contributions are sought which explore novel approaches to satisfying the demands of optical climate-related measurements.

       Invited Speakers:

          Jim Abshire, NASA Goddard Space Flight Ctr., USA
          
Measuring Greenhouse Gases from Aircraft and Spacecraft using Lidar

          Bill Hirst, BP Shell, USA
          
New Airborne and Ground-based Techniques for Remotely Mapping Multiple Gas Sources
          and Quantifying Individual Mass Emission Rates


          Chris Rella, Picarro, USA
          
Applications of Cavity Ring Down Spectroscopy in the Earth Sciences

          Greg Rieker, University of Colorado, USA
          
Precision Atmospheric Trace Gas Monitoring with Frequency Comb Lasers
          
          *
 Symposium Organizer: László Veisz, Max-Planck-Institute Quantum Optics, Germany

Symposium on Applications of Low Noise Frequency Combs
Thursday, 22 October, 13:00 – 17:30
Crystal Room
 
Frequency combs have become a hot topic of research over the last decade.  Recent methods for generating low-noise frequency combs have spawned a host of new applications, including optical communications, spectroscopy, biomedical applications, signal processing, and numerous sensing applications.  This symposium will cover the applications enabled by low-noise, highly coherent frequency combs and includes a panel discussion with the invited speakers.

  Invited Speakers:

         Yoshinori Awaji, NICT, Japan
         
Perspective of New Infrastructure of Fiber Communication: The Role of Coherent Light in SDM Era

         Ronald Esman, MITRE, USA
         
Signal Processing using Optical Frequency Combs 

         David Howe, NIST, USA
         
Optical-to-RF Frequency Synthesis: Application Priorities for Ultra-low Phase Noise

         Takashi Inoue, AIST, Japan
         
Exabit Optical Network based on Optical Comb Distribution
         for High-performance Datacenters: Challenges and Strategies
 

         Ken-ichi Kitayama, University of Osaka, Japan
         
Digital Coherence W-band Radio-over-fiber System

         
Juerg Leuthold, ETH, Switzerland
         
Frequency Combs as Sources for Tbit/s Communications Systems
         Radan Slavik, Southampton University, UK
         
Comb-locked Arbitrary Signal Synthesis

         
Steven Wilkinson, Raytheon, USA
         
Microwave Generation using Optical Frequency Combs
       
        *
 Symposium Organizer: Bill Kuo, University of California San Diego, USA

International Year of Light- Science to Solutions
Monday, 19 October, 16:30-20:30
Regency Ballroom
 
The International Year of Light Special Session, open to the public, will showcase examples of how optics has made, and will make, a difference in society.  Speakers will highlight the connection between fundamental scientific research to solutions to problems with societal impact.  The topical coverage will span issues such as energy, climate, health care, and telecommunications.  The talks are intended to be short (10-20 min), in TED-talk style, designed to engage and inspire.

Laser Science Banquet
Tuesday, 20 October, 19:00 – 21:00
Gordon Biersch Restaurant, 33 East San Fernando St., San Jose, California
Join your colleagues for the annual Laser Science Banquet. Tickets are required for this event and can be purchased for $65 USD upon registration.
 
VIP Industry Leaders Networking Event: Connecting Corporate Executives, Recent Graduates and Students 
Wednesday, 21 October, 12:30 – 14:00
Club Regent
 
This session brings together Industry Executives to share their business experience – from how they started their careers and lessons learned along the way, to using their degree in an executive position – with recent graduates and students. The program starts with informal networking during lunch and then transitions into “speed meetings” – small, brief visits with 6-8 executives to discuss careers, industry trends or other career topics.

PRESS REGISTRATION: A press room for credentialed press and analysts will be located in The Fairmont San Jose, Sunday through Thursday, 18-22 October 2015. Those interested in obtaining a media badge for FiO should contact OSA's Media Relations team at 202.416.1443 or MediaRelations@osa.org.
 
About the Meeting
Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2015 is the Optical Society’s (OSA) 99th Annual Meeting and is being held together with Laser Science XXXI, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Laser Science (DLS). The two meetings unite the OSA and APS communities for five days of quality, cutting-edge presentations, fascinating invited speakers and a variety of special events spanning a broad range of topics in optics and photonics—the science of light—across the disciplines of physics, biology and chemistry. An exhibit floor featuring leading optics companies will further enhance the meeting. More information at www.FrontiersinOptics.org, and join the conversation using 
#FIO15.

About The Optical Society
Founded in 1916, The Optical Society (OSA) is the leading professional organization for scientists, engineers, students and entrepreneurs who fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate achievements in the science of light. Through world-renowned publications, meetings and membership initiatives, OSA provides quality research, inspired interactions and dedicated resources for its extensive global network of optics and photonics experts. OSA is a founding partner of the National Photonics Initiative and the 2015 International Year of Light. For more information, visit: 
www.osa.org.

Media Contacts:

MediaRelations@osa.org