2026 Student Paper Competition

The papers submitted to the competition were reviewed during the standard Technical Program Committee (TPC) review process, which resulted in 24 finalists being selected. After the papers are presented at the meeting, the Program Committee members will select winners based on content quality, value to the technical community of interest and the student's presentation skills.

Congratulations to the 2026 Winners!

Bragg Gratings, Photosensitivity and Poling in Optical Materials and Waveguides (BGPP)

Alexis Tryoen, CNRS, France 
Mid-Infrared Waveguide Fabrication in Heavy Oxide Germanate Glass via Femtosecond Laser Direct Writing

Integrated Photonics Research, Silicon and Nanophotonics (IPR)

Alexis Tryoen, CNRS, France 
Towards a Compact Hyperspectral Camera based on Femtosecond-Laser-Written 3D Waveguides

Gregory Sercel, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
Demystifying the independence of dual-comb interferometry on carrier-envelope offset noise

Nonlinear Photonics (NP)

​Yingchu Xu, California Institute of Technology, United States 
Quadratic Nonlinear Interferometer for Ultrafast Laser Mode-Locking in Nanophotonic Lithium Niobate

Novel Optical Materials and Applications (NOMA)

Mehmet Kepenecki, University of Austin, United States 
Effect of Pillar Geometry on Optical and Mechanical Properties of Sapphire Subwavelength Nanopillar Arrays

Photonic Networks and Devices (Networks)

Imran Chowdhury, Politecnico di Torino, Italy 
LLM-Assisted Digital Twin for Next Generation Optical Network-as-a-Service (ONaaS)

Signal Processing in Photonic Communications (SPPCom)

Meredith Caveney, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States 
Event Signatures for Polarization Sensing in Commercial Coherent Transceivers

Solar, Lighting and Thermal Photonics (SOLITH)

Daehyun Kim, University of California, Los Angeles, United States 
Radiative Thermal Constraints on the Optimal Absorption Band of Space-Based Photovoltaics

Specialty Optical Fibers (SOF)

Amelia Ford, Optoelectronics Research Centre, United Kingdom 
Brazed Fiber-in-Metal Architecture for Multiaxial Strain Monitoring

Emerging Economy Prize Paper Winners

John Granada Torres, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia
OSNR and Spectral Spacing Estimation in Gridless WDM Systems Based on IQ Histograms and Kernel Density Estimatio

Richa Verma, JJS University Noida, India
Geometry-Dependent Plasmonic Light–Matter Interaction in Coumarin-Based DSSCs: A Multiscale Study

Mayank Gupta, Pandit Deendayal Energy University, India
Luminescent Solar Concentrator based Building Integrated Photovoltaic device for Indoor Lighting and Power Generation