IEEE Photonics Conference 2012

Welcome to San Francisco, California and the 25th IEEE Photonics Conference
(previously known as the IEEE LEOS Annual Meeting). Following in the path of
previous successful meetings, this year’s conference features an extensive
range of technical activities in addition to some unique events.
The conference opens on Sunday with a GOLD (Graduates Of the Last Decade)
session focused on career development and networking opportunities for recent
graduates in the photonics field. This is followed by the “Careers In Research
Forum”. The charter of the Careers in Research Forum is to promote career
awareness among students and young researchers in photonics and related
fields. Attendees will have the opportunity to listen to a welcome address and
invited presentations from leading researchers in academia and industry highlighting
milestones for achieving success. They are: Prof. Scott Yam from Queen’s University, Canada,
and Prof. Odile Liboiron-Ladouceur from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill
University. The next event is the “Entrepreneurs Session”. This session will feature invited presentations
from a number of successful photonics entrepreneurs who will present their personal perspectives and
insights on successfully commercializing photonics technology as well as the lessons they learnt along
the way. Attendees will have a unique opportunity to hear first-hand about the dynamic world of
photonics startups and to learn about what it takes to be successful as an entrepreneur. Following the
presentations, there will be a panel discussion to field questions from the audience. The presenters
include Prof. H. Scott Hinton from Utah State University, Dr. Raymond Beausoleil from HP Labs, and Dr.
David Rolston from Reflex Photonics.
The last event on Sunday’s schedule is a 50th Anniversary of the Semiconductor Laser Session &
Reception. 2012 marks a very special birthday as it is the 50th Anniversary of the Semiconductor Laser.
The very first operational semiconductor laser was made in 1962. In the 50 years since we have
witnessed great progress in its development. To celebrate the occasion, there will be a special session
on Sunday evening devoted to the semiconductor laser. Several renowned researchers including Prof.
James Coleman from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, Prof. Thomas Koch from the
University of Arizona, and Dr. Don Scifres from SDL Ventures Inc., will provide some historical perspectives
and share their experiences in the development of semiconductor laser technology.
We will hold two plenary sessions, one each on Monday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon. Four distinguished
speakers (two per day) will provide their insight on a range of topics: “Large-Area, Flexible,
Organic Photonics and Electronics” by Prof. Takao Someya, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; “Driving
VCSELs and Silicon Photonic Optical Interconnects to Brutal Area and Energy Efficiencies for Future
Computing Systems” by Dr. Ashok Krishnamoorthy, Oracle, San Diego, CA, USA; “3D Photonic
Metamaterials and Transformation Optics”, by Prof. Martin Wegener, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,
Karlsruhe, Germany; and “The Opto-Electronic Physics that Just Broke the Efficiency Record in Solar
Cells” by Prof. Eli Yablonovitch, University of California – Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
We will also have seven tutorials that have been scheduled throughout the week which will be given by
four distinguished researchers on the following topics: “Solar Cells” by Prof. Vikram Dalal, Director of the
Microelectronics Research Center at Iowa State University.; “Cavity Optomechanics” by Prof. Kerry
Vahala, California Institute of Technology, USA; “Microwave Photonic Filters” by Dr. Lute Maleki,
OEWaves, USA; and “Coherent Communication” by Dr. Peter Winzer, Bell Laboratories, Alcatel-Lucent,
USA.
The main technical program of the meeting this year is extremely strong. The Society’s 14 program
subcommittees have assembled an outstanding program comprising 4 Special Symposia, 125 invited
talks and 441 contributed papers, over half of which are contributed by student authors. There were 23
papers submitted for the Best Student Paper Aware. 5 were nominated by the program subcommittees
and five student awards will be presented at Monday evening’s Awards Reception.
On behalf of my fellow conference Chairs, I wish to express our sincere gratitude to all the volunteers
who have contributed to the success of this year’s meeting; especially the Chairs and Members of the
Society’s Program Subcommittees who invested an extraordinary amount of their time selecting invited
speakers, reviewing papers, and organizing the high quality technical sessions. In addition, the hard
work and enthusiastic dedication of the Photonics Society conference activities staff is greatly appreciated
and they are to be congratulated for skillfully coordinating the complex logistics of this large event.
In particular, special thanks go to Mary Hendrickx and Katrina Edsell for their tireless efforts.
We hope you have a very rewarding and enjoyable conference!
Susumu NODA
Program Chair, 2012 IEEE International Photonics Conference
2012 PHOTONICS SOCIETY FORWARD
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