Ove Poulsen, CEO of NKT Research, told OLE: "If any of the
elite students attending our summer school take a liking to Denmark and wish to build a career in our
sector of research or in our industrial firms then we will have achieved our goal. We are constantly on
the lookout for highly qualified people that can help take us forward."And it is not just NKT that
benefits from the school. The students attended the course for free: there was no registration fee; all of
the accommodation was paid for; a travel grant was available for those who needed it; and they even
got pocket money.
The students received tuition from international researchers who are renowned
in their fields. For example, Eli Yablonovitch from UCLA in the US presented his vision of an optical
integrated circuit based on photonic crystals; Ursula Keller from the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology enthused about ultrafast photonics; Erich Ippen from MIT in the US talked about nonlinear
devices; and Lin Mollenauer from Lucent Technologies in the US lectured on dispersion-managed
solitons.
And if any of the students were in any doubt as to why they had chosen to study
photonics, then an hour with Sune Svanberg - director of the Lund Laser Centre (LLC) in Sweden -
soon cured them of any apathy. His incredibly enthusiastic lecture was part of a visit to LLC and its
labs, including its terawatt-laser facility. Other visits included in the week-long summer school were to
the Danish Technical University's optical-communications research centre and to NKT's spin-off firms
Crystal Fibre and Ionas, both located near Copenhagen.
The summer school took place in the
magnificent surroundings of the city's Academy of Sciences and Letters, where all of the students took
part in lectures on five topics: photonic-bandgap components; nonlinear devices and communication;
quantum communication and computing; quantum-dot lasers; and ultrafast technologies and optical
communications.
Poulsen is keen to stress that NKT had no control over the choice of topics. He
said: "We have a strong technical committee from academia that chose the topics and speakers. To my
surprise, all of the invited speakers accepted immediately."
One of these was Richard De La Rue
from Glasgow University in the UK who gave an introduction to photonic-crystal technology. He said:
"The funding for this school has been better than for any other I have attended. I am surprised that NKT
is prepared to fund the school to such an extent."
Hans-Jörg Lohe, a student at the Technical
University in Zurich, Switzerland, said: "It was good to attend lectures on topics outside my field. I was
attracted to the summer school because of the lecturers and I was not disappointed. The social aspect of
the summer school was also important - I met students from all around the
world."The 85 students that made it onto the course came from 26
different countries and were chosen from 250 applicants. John Østergaard, secretary of the summer
school said: "The original concept for the school provided for 60 students, but we received so many
qualified applications that we increased the intake to 85."Whether any of these students end up
working for NKT remains to be seen. But one thing is clear, they will have been impressed by what
Denmark has to offer and will have happy memories of warm summer evenings in Copenhagen. And of
course the fascinating lectures!
NKT summer school www.nkt.dk/summer
