 |
 |
07 Jan 2008
SPIE's Photonics West will draw an international crowd to San Jose in California, 19–24 January, for a wide range of conferences, exhibitions and professional development sessions.
Known for a diverse range of technical presentations and hosting the largest exhibition on light-driven technologies in North America, Photonics West is expected to attract 17,000 visitors from around the world to the San Jose Convention Center this month.
The main Photonics West exhibition, featuring 1100 exhibitor companies, runs mid-week from 22 to 24 January in Halls 1–3, the South Hall and the exhibition foyer. It is open 10.00 a.m. – 5.00 p.m. on the 22nd and 23rd, and 10.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m. on the 24th.
The Biomedical Optics exhibition will be held in Hall 1 on the opening weekend of 19–20 January, and will form the largest biomedical optics exhibition in the world, with 150 companies exhibiting. The opening hours are 1.00–5.00 p.m. on the 19th and 10.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m. on the 20th. Alongside the exhibitions, Photonics West will feature numerous plenary and hot-topic sessions, workshops and panel discussions.
Symposia
Photonics West comprises four symposia, each covering a significant area in photonics research. These are:
1. Biomedical optics (BiOS)
BiOS has conferences dedicated to topics such as plasmonics, optical coherence tomography, imaging, image acquisition and processing, and optical interactions with tissue. The traditional standing-room only BiOS hot-topics session will kick off at 7.00 p.m. on 19 January. Moderated by Sergio Fantini of Tufts University, speakers will include James Fujimoto, Mary-Ann Mycek, Stefan Andersson-Engels and R Rox Anderson. Topics will range from imaging cancer with gold nanoparticles to optical spectroscopy of tissue and photodynamic therapy.
2. Lasers and applications in science and engineering (LASE)
One highlight of the LASE programme is the three plenary presentations that will be given on 23 January. Starting at 10.30 a.m., the plenaries will cover laser processing and chemistry, attaining industrial success, and a case study from Henry Frederick Dylla of the American Institute of Physics describing the world's most powerful tunable laser. This source is housed at Jefferson Labs and recently achieved 14.2 kW of continuous-wave operation at a wavelength of 1.6 µm.
3. Integrated optoelectronic devices (OPTO)
OPTO includes sessions on photonic crystals, LEDs, silicon photonics, integrated optics and semiconductor lasers. The OPTO plenary presentations will start at 8.30 a.m. on 22 January and will see Eli Yablonovitch discuss "Nanophotonics: from Photonic Crystals to Plasmonics", and Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci from Johannes Kepler University in Austria describe organic "plastic" optoelectronic devices. The OPTO programme also includes several industry perspective sessions on optical components for telecom applications and broadband access communication technologies.
4. Micro- and nanofabrication (MOEMS/ MEMS)
The plenary sessions on 21 January start at 9.00 a.m. with Michael Douglass of Texas Instruments discussing MEMS reliability; Harold Craighead from Cornell University will describe optically transduced MEMS resonators; and Microvision's Randy Sprague will talk about high-resolution displays.
Papers from all of the sessions within these four main conferences will be published online in the SPIE Digital Library within 2–4 weeks of the event.
Industry
The industrial perspective will be present throughout the event, with a range of panel discussions, workshops and more than 80 technical courses and professional development workshops.
Among the highlights, Adonis Mak, publisher of Laser Focus World China, and Jeremey Chang from Edmund Optics will discuss the growing Chinese market in an executive panel on 24 January, running from 9.15 to 9.45 a.m. The discussion has been given the intriguing title "China – Competitor, Customer or Conundrum?".
A free executive panel entitled "Market Direction and Implications for the World of Photonics" will take place from 1.30 to 2.45 p.m. on 23 January and is open to all exhibition visitors, exhibitors and technical conference attendees. Executives from Bookham, CVI/Melles Griot, Trumpf, Coherent and other companies with a global perspective will share their views on the opportunities, innovations and new applications that are changing the market. The discussion will be moderated by Stephen Eglash of solar start-up firm Cyrium.
Professional development
Courses and workshops taught by leaders in the field will enable attendees to bring themselves up to date with the hottest technologies or the background basics. Topics covered will include: optoelectronics materials and devices; photonic integration; nanotechnologies in photonics; displays and holography; photonic therapeutics and diagnostics; clinical technologies and systems; and many others.
• PW 2008 blog on optics.org
If you're not travelling to San Jose, make sure you read the Photonics West show blog on optics.org at http://optics.org/blog to keep in touch with all the latest news, views and announcements from the show. Or, if you are in San Jose, why not visit the Optics & Laser Europe and optics.org team at booth 1135.
• This article originally appeared in the January 2008 issue of Optics & Laser Europe magazine.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| © 2024 SPIE Europe |
|
