Optical frequency conversion is one of the key constituents of photonics, effectively applied for laser spectral control and broadband ultrashort laser pulses generation, which has been awarded this year the Nobel Prize in Physics. The dependence of the various nonlinear optical processes on either bulk or surface properties of matter has been exploited as a tool for the characterization of crystalline solids in material science as well as for the study of dynamics at interfaces and in advanced sensing and bioimaging techniques. The generation of entangled photon pairs, which are the information basis of quantum computing and quantum cryptography, is another key asset related to these phenomena.
The Focus Session on Nonlinear Optics at the Nanoscale will confront the main technological challenges to undertake for further boosting new applications based on photon conversion and nonlinear phenomena in highly confined volumes, an aspect which has strongly stimulated research and industry activities during the 20th-century.
Confirmed Keynote Speaker:
Anatoly V. Zayats (Head of the Photonics & Nanotechnology Group, Kings College London)
List of confirmed Invited Speakers:
- Michael Scalora (Charles M. Bowden Research Facility
AMRDEC, US Army RDECOM)
- Andrea Locatelli (Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia)
- Pierre-François Brevet (Institut Lumière Matière, University of Lyon)
- Daniele Brida (University of Luxemburg)
- Alexandre Bouhelier (CNRS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté)
- Alfredo de Rossi (Thales Research and Technology)
- Michele Ortolani (Department of Physics, Sapienza Università di Roma) |