Frontiers in Optics 2008/Laser Science XXIV
Submission Categories
Frontiers in Optics Themes
Laser Science Topics
Additonal Submission Categories
Frontiers in Optics Theme Descriptions
FiO 1: Optical Design and Instrumentation
1.1: Optics and Instrumentation for Next-Generation X-Ray Synchrotron Radiation, ERL and FEL Sources
A number of next-generation synchrotron, free-electron laser (FEL), and energy recovery linac (ERL) X-ray facilities are currently under construction or being planned worldwide. The unprecedented brightness, coherence, and resolution properties of these sources will enable tremendous advances in the fields of biology, physics, and materials sciences. The unique properties of these sources (beam coherence, flux, short pulse duration) pose significant challenges to the optical components required to utilize their beams. The expected high output fluence and short pulse duration from X-ray (as well as VUV and XUV) FEL beams translates to strict limits in terms of materials choice and thermal stability, thus requiring innovative X-ray mirror and monochromator designs. Beam coherence preservation requirements for the X-ray mirrors result in stringent surface figure and finish specifications that challenge the state-of-the-art in X-ray optics manufacturing and metrology capabilities. Focusing requirements extend down to nanometer-size beam spots, invoking the need for novel diffractive elements. The temporal characteristics of these next-generation sources (fast repetition rates and femtosecond-length pulses) require advanced detectors and special timing/synchronization elements. This theme will address the latest developments in all aforementioned fields.
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1.2: Optics for Energy (Joint Theme with Laser Science)
These sessions will highlight the increasingly important role of optics for power generation, transmission and storage. The symposium will cover a wide range of topics, including photovoltaic devices and modules, solar concentrators, optical energy systems, optical test equipment for energy devices, optical coatings for energy applications, metamaterials and plasmonics for photovoltaics, solar photolysis and production of hydrogen and directed energy for remote power applications
1.3: Wavefront Sensing and Control
Future light-weighted and segmented primary mirror systems such as NASA’s JWST (James-Webb-Space-Telescope) require active optical control to maintain mirror positioning and figure to within nanometer tolerances. An image-based wavefront sensor offers a simple solution that differs from conventional wavefront sensing approaches (e.g., Shack-Hartmann, shearing interferometry) in that complicated optical hardware is replaced by a computational approach where the science camera itself serves as the wavefront sensor.
Various image-based wavefront estimation approaches are distinguished by what data are considered to be “knowns” or the “unknowns,” and also how the data are collected, e.g., with or without a diversity function. For example, phase-diverse “Phase-Retrieval” estimates the exit pupil phase when the image-object is known, which is typically a point source or star, using intensity data collected in a defocused image plane. By contrast, the algorithm category of “Phase-Diversity” considers both the phase and image-object as unknowns. This theme is intended to promote technical exchange on “state of the art” in image-based algorithm developments, and also to emphasize the fundamental theory underlying these estimation methods and their variants.
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FiO 2: Optical Sciences
2.1: Ultrahigh Fields, High Energy Density on Solid Targets and in Clusters
An exciting frontier of laser science is the ultrahigh, relativistic field regime where laser intensities up to 1019 W/cm2 interact with matter. Recent discoveries include high energy protons, electrons and XUV/X-rays from the interaction of ultra strong fields with matter. Insight into the physics behind excitation and energy transport is revealing how the 1eV photon energy from the laser to be converted into >MeV particle energies observed in experiments.
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2.2: Next Generation of Intense Lasers Including High-Energy PW Lasers and Few-Cycle OPCPA
Several exciting new techniques are allowing lasers to reach and exceed petawatt (1015) peak powers. High gain, ultrafast approaches such as Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification is proposed to enable the amplification of few cycle pulses up to terawatt and petawatt peak powers. Included with this new class of high energy laser systems is a broader appeal of facility
or user based laser light sources.
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2.3: HHG Generation and Control from Atoms and Molecules
Atoms and molecules in strong laser fields generate high harmonics with photon energies up to 1keV. Recent advances in this area include the observation of high harmonic generation in plasma waveguides and probing, potentially with attosecond resolution, of molecular excitation by high harmonics and the rescattering photoelectron.
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2.4: Femtosecond Surface Science Techniques
Dynamics at surfaces can now be probed with ultrafast UV and soft X-ray laser spectroscopy. Such methods allow, for example, transient excited electronic states at surfaces or electron transfer process to be time resolved. Moreover, new time resolved photoemission measurements provide additional leverage to photoelectron angular distributions and photo-emission electron microscopy (PEEM). Such experiments provide key data about chemical reaction mechanisms and the dynamics of states on surfaces. Insight into these processes may make it possible to control, for example, surface catalysis.
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FiO 3: Optics in Biology and Medicine
3.1: Optical Manipulation of Biological Systems
Light has been used to observe the microscopic workings of biological systems since the microscope was first invented by Van Leeuwenhoek in the 17th century. Optical imaging is well suited to the study of biology because the spatial resolution available matches so closely to the length scale of cells and sub-cellular features: the spatial scale over which many events in normal and disease-state biology are occurring. While imaging tools have advanced dramatically in recent decades, tools for manipulation of biological systems have lagged behind. Such manipulation is critical for biological discovery and for potential therapeutic applications. Extending the capability of optical methods to not only visualize but also physically disrupt and otherwise manipulate biological structures in a native environment at the spatial scale of individual cells and sub-cellular structures will provide a revolutionary tool for biological discovery and therapeutic applications. This theme will explore some of the latest advances in this area.
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3.2: Imaging of Mice and Men
Measurement of tissue optical attenuation of near-infrared light has shown the promise of providing functional information regarding tissue physiology and structure. Although light attenuation at such wavelengths are dominated by scattering, a broad range of imaging techniques have been developed to study, for example, the detection and characterization of female breast cancer, imaging of brain function, as well as small animal studies to study normal tissue physiology and progression of disease. Development of such imaging and spectroscopic techniques is not only limited to instrumentation advancements, but also to new clinical paradigms and applications. This theme will explore the development of optical imaging and demonstrate the unique capabilities of this information-rich technique.
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3.3: Advanced in vivo and in vitro Microscopy
Although diffraction has long limited the ability to optically resolve images, recent advances in microscopy have pushed resolution far below the wavelength of light. Development of novel fluorescence microscopy schemes has enabled visualization of biological systems on the nanoscale. Other advances in confocal and nonlinear microscopy have greatly improved our ability to gain information about changes in biological structures due to diseases such as cancer. These advances in microscopy are finding new applications in fields such as neuroscience, helping us better understand their function and pathways towards disease. This theme will discuss recent advances in microscopy and their application to the study of living biological systems.
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3.4: Novel Optical Trapping and Micromanipulation Techniques
Different optical trapping schemes have been widely used to uncover aspects of matter–light interactions in the microscopic and submicroscopic domains. A broad range of physical and biological phenomena is elucidated in more detail thanks to the use of these schemes. This theme explores the applications of novel optical trapping and manipulation techniques, including the use of evanescent fields, plasmonics, microfluidics, integrated lab-on-a-chip technologies, parallel optical sorting, innovation in optical methods for cellular biology, as well as the current state of the art in fundamental concepts of optical trapping.
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3.5: Molecular Imaging and Targeted Therapeutics
Molecularly targeted contrast agents are poised to revolutionize medical diagnostics and are enabling new avenues of biomedical research. By allowing imaging methods with resolution at the level of cells or coarser to produce images where the contrast is determined by the presence (or even activity) of individual biological molecules, these agents allow molecular-scale events to be monitored. Therapeutic molecules that require both molecular binding as well as activation enable greater specificity in the treatment of diseases such as cancer. Talks in this theme will discuss the latest advances in optically based molecular imaging and optically activated therapeutic strategies.
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FiO 4: Optics in Information Science
4.1: Systems for Optical Manipulation
Trapping with optical gradient forces from one or more laser beams has lead to breakthroughs in atomic physics, as recognized by Nobel awards in the last decade. More recently, we are witnessing a second wave of activity, where elaborate optical systems are being devised that employ direct or indirect optical forces for the simultaneous manipulation in 2-D and 3-D spaces of many micrometer scale particles, and cells, as well as for trapping and manipulating multiple particles, such as ions, for quantum information processing. These multi-body manipulation systems can serve to assemble and orient structures, perform sorting operations, or serve as a basis for quantum computation, all with the power of optics.
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4.2: Diffractive Micro- and Nanostructures for Sensing and Information Processing
This theme's intention is—in brief—to highlight the importance of micro- and nano-optics for optical system design. As diffractive optics has developed into a mature enabling technology and nano-optics is progressing along the same path, it is important to concentrate on applications and system integration. In this context, the theme encourages submissions from the diffractive optics community as well as people concerned with traditional holography and interferometry, the latter using micro and nano elements as part of a larger system.
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4.3: Silicon and III-V Based Optoelectronics for Optical Interconnects
This theme focuses on the design and integration of Silicon and III-V optoelectronic components for optical interconnects. In addition to presentations of novel laser sources and detectors, presentations of optical channels matched to these components are also important. Other topics that explore the utilization of silicon and III-V platforms are also pivotal.
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FiO 5: Photonics
5.1: Quantum Dot Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers
This theme covers recent developments in the field of quantum-dot and quantum-dash amplifiers. Of particular importance are fabrication issues and related device characteristics. Novel applications taking advantage of the low dimensional structures are covered as well.
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5.2: Novel Fiber and Fiber Photonic Devices
This theme covers the dramatic advancements being made in a wide variety of novel optical fibers, including novel microstructured and photonic crystal fibers, as well as novel fibers and transmission technologies to provide improved performance in optical fiber communication systems. The properties of this new range of fibers provide significant performance improvements that can be used in many areas of optical communications as well as medical and additional applications. This theme includes the fabrication and performance of highly nonlinear and other novel fibers specifically tailored for optical communications, nonlinear applications and high power carrying capability.
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5.3: Next Generation Switching Fabrics
Integrated photonic devices are poised to substantially change the landscapes of optical switching and transport by providing intelligent and reconfigurable node capabilities on compact integrated platforms. The theme encompasses recent advances in passive optical devices for reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers and wavelength selective switched and high density photonic integrated circuits of active devices for optical transponders and fast optical switching fabric applications.
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5.4: How Will Bits and Bytes Be Encoded in Future Optical Communications Systems?
Coherent optical communication is advancing at a fast pace and is starting to revolutionize the way bits and bytes are encoded and transmitted. In fact, techniques that were developed in RF/wireless communication over the last few decades are now applied in the field of optical telecommunications in order to enable coherent optical communications. This theme attempts to review the recent trends. A particular emphasis is on the digital signal processing of data, recent implementations of coherent transmission systems and novel modulation formats such as QAM and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM).
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5.5: Silicon Optics
Exactly sixty years ago the invention of the transistor revolutionized the field of electronics— silicon electronics was born! Silicon electronics led to a miniaturization by allowing high integration of complex circuits onto a single chip. Similarly, we see tremendous progress in the field of silicon optics in the last few years. There is progress in extracting stimulated emission from silicon and there is progress in building silicon based modulators, and detectors are now monolithically integrated into silicon. The theme on “silicon optics” highlights recent trends and discusses the vision of a new silicon industry—an industry based on CMOS compatible optics and electronics.
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FiO 6: Quantum Electronics
6.1: Beam Combining
Beam combining of an array of fiber lasers or amplifiers is a potential route to further power-scaling of diffraction-limited fiber-based sources. Thanks to cladding-pumping, fiber lasers have now reached output powers of several kilowatts, even without beam combining. However, high-power fiber devices offer additional advantages that facilitate scaling to even higher powers through beam combination. These include single-mode operation, polarization maintenance, and narrow-line operation with low phase noise over a large wavelength range. There are also additional requirements such as good spatial stability, high fill factor, low aberration and high dispersion of diffractive beam-combining elements, and practical pump coupling. This theme invites papers relating to any relevant factor, for non-combined single-emitter systems as well as combined ones. The theme covers all types of combination approaches, including active and passive phase-locking as well as spectral beam combination in oscillator and amplifier configurations.
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6.2: Nonlinear Wave Physics
This theme explores the use of optical systems to study general properties of nonlinear wave physics. Examples include condensed-matter behavior in optics, solid-state effects in photonic structures, dynamical instabilities, surface waves, shock waves and the statistical physics of incoherent light. Beyond metaphorical science, this theme explores how physics concepts can give new insights into nonlinear optics and lead to novel nonlinear photonic devices.
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6.3: Coherence, Light Localization and Optical Chaos
This theme includes complicated phenomena and challenging fundamental physics of light in disordered structures and chaotic microcavities, such as Anderson localization, multiple scattering, nonlinear dynamics, and classical and quantum chaos.
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6.4: Non-Classical States and Quantum Information
This theme will cover the generation, storage, detection and application of non-classical states of light, as well as recent advances in quantum information, including quantum computing, quantum cryptography and quantum communication.
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6.5: The Rise of Quantum Telecom
Over the last two decades quantum cryptography has advanced from an abstract theoretical construction, to field trials in real fiber-optic networks and free-space links, to a commercial product. This mini-symposium will give modern-day industrial and academic perspectives on quantum security mechanisms and their deployment in the real (telecom) world, and future development paths including wide-scale roll-out.
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6.6: Photonic Bandgap Engineering, Nonlinearity and QED Effects
New advances in photonic crystals and microcavities will be discussed in this theme. The emphases will be on engineering band structure and nonlinearities of photonic crystals, and identifying novel applications based on QED effects in photonic crystals.
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FiO 7: Vision and Color
7.1: Optical Models of the Eye
With the advent of accurate measurements of the optical quality of the eye, new models are now being developed of normal and abnormal eye growth. Models are important to understanding the normal development of the eye and optical changes in the development of refractive error. In addition, optical models are important to the design of optical corrections to the eye including intraocular lens implants.
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7.2: Virtual Displays and Natural Tasks
A central issue in vision science is how various visual mechanisms operate and combine their outputs during the performance of natural tasks. In recent years, improvements in computational power and in virtual display systems have made it possible to conduct highly controlled experiments while subjects are performing complex naturalistic tasks. This session will describe some of the empirical findings that are emerging from recent advances in virtual display technology.
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Laser Science
1: Lasers and Their Applications in Space and Fundamental Physics
The unique properties of lasers are frequently used both for scientific applications which could uncover new fundamental properties of the physical world, and practical applications which could greatly improve system sensitivity and performances. The theme includes use of lasers in tests of fundamental physics, precision spectroscopy and science measurements and applications in space. Topics of laser technology and space laser development are also included.
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2: Laser-Cooled Atoms and Molecules
Over the last twenty years the use of laser light to cool atoms and molecules to sub-millikelvin temperatures has opened up significant new opportunities to study the properties of these particles and the way they interact with each other. In addition, laser-cooled atomic systems are beginning to show promise for application to precision instruments based on interference of matter waves. This theme includes all areas of laser-cooled atoms and molecules with a particular emphasis on cold molecules and applications of laser-cooled atoms and Bose-Einstein condensates to precision sensors.
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3: Quantum Information
Many aspects of quantum information processing and communication are specifically enabled by laser light. This theme explores quantum information in this context, with a focus on entanglement mediated by lasers and the transmission of quantum state information between spatially separated locations.
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4: Novel Applications of Lasers
This theme includes novel and innovative applications of lasers in devices and instruments that may eventually have significant technological impact. Examples are cold atom chip traps, mechanical resonators coupled to laser light and other systems combining aspects of atomic physics, microfabrication and lasers. Innovative, “out of the box” contributed presentations are especially encouraged.
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5: Terahertz Spectroscopy
This symposium will feature advances in far-infrared spectroscopy using radiation generated by subpicosecond pulsed sources. Investigations of biomolecular dynamics, photoinduced charge transfer, charged carrier dynamics and mobility measurements will be highlighted.
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6: Laser Spectroscopy of Nanostructured Materials
Recent theory and experimental work on the spectroscopy semiconductor nanoparticles will be highlighted. Studies of exciton relaxation dynamics and exciton-exciton interactions will be presented. In addition, a variety of applications of semiconductor nanoparticles in optoelectronics and sensing will be covered.
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7: Lasers in Biomedical Optics
Diagnostics and imaging using light scattering and Raman spectroscopy in complex media such as tissue and blood will be featured in this symposium.
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8: Transient Spectroscopy of Conjugated Polymers
Investigations of the physics following photoexcitation will be presented in this symposium. Controversial issues such as exciton localization, the role of intermolecular interactions, why quantum yields in the solid state are low and singlet-triplet branching will be addressed in the talks and be the subject of a discussion session.
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PRL 50th Anniversary Celebration
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