Student Paper Competition

This year's Congress will have various student prizes. 

ASSL Best Student Oral Presenter Prize

ASSL General Chairs select finalists based on the content quality and review scores of student papers sessioned for oral presentations. After the papers are presented at the meeting, the Program Committee will select winners based on content quality, value to the technical community of interest and the student's presentation skills. Please note there are two sets of finalists (and winners) based on the two topical categories: Materials and Sources. 

The prize will include a monetary prize of €540 (winner), €340 (second place) and €240 (third place). This prize program is possible due to the generous support from Trumpf and Yokogawa Electric Corp.  

Congratulations to the finalists!

 

Materials

Ole Hahn, Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung, Germany 
Tuesday, 13 October 2026, 09:00 – 09:15
Power Scaling of Blue 495 nm Pr3+:BaY2F8 Lasers

Lisa Lallemand Effilux, Laboratoire Charles Fabry, France
Wednesday, 14 October 2026, 14:30 – 14:45
LED-pumped Nd:glass Master Oscillator Power Amplifier

Jan Pokorný, Denki Tsushin Daigaku, IPE Czech Academy of Sciences, Czechia
Wednesday, 14 October 2026, 14:00 – 14:15
The Impact of Pair Induced Quenching on Performance of Ho-doped Silica Fibers

 

Sources

Faik Derya Ince, Photonics and Ultrafast Laser Science, Ruhr Universität
Tuesday, 13 October 2026, 18:15 – 18:30
SESAM-modelocked Ho,Y:CaF2 Laser at 2.1 µm

Christoper Pasquale, University of Michigan, USA
Tuesday, 13 October 2026, 11:45 – 12:00
100mJ-class Spatially and Temporally Coherently Combined Femtosecond Fiber Laser System

 

Optica Student Recognition Prize

The papers submitted to the competition were reviewed during the standard Technical Program Committee (TPC) review process, which resulted in up to 20 finalists (up to 4 from each topical) 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 finalists!

 

Advanced Solid State Lasers Conference (ASSL)

Please note the ASSL Technical Program Committee Chairs decided to focus this prize on poster presenters considering the best student oral presenters are considered for the ASSL Best Student Oral Presenter Prize program.  

Johannes Eckhardt, Fraunhofer-Institut fur Optronik Systemtechnik und Bildauswertung IOSB, Germany
Wednesday, 14 October 2026, 16:00 – 17:30
Passively Q-Switched Tm3+:YAP Laser with Ho3+:YLF Saturable Absorber

Hiroaki Furuse, National Institute for Materials Science, Japan
Tuesday, 13 October 2026, 16:00 – 17:30
Transparent Er3+ Doped(Sc,La) 2O3 Ceramics Fabricated by Spark Plasma Sintering for Mid-infrared Laser Applications

Yuya Imaeda, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Wednesday, 14 October 2026, 16:00 – 17:30
Analytical Solutions of Stimulated Brillouin Scattering for Numerical Optimization Beyond Conventional B-Integral Estimation

 

Compact EUV & X-Ray Light Sources (EUVXRAY)

Philipp Gierschke, Fraunhofer IOF, Germany
Thursday, 15 October 2026, 14:30 – 14:45
Bright Coherent Soft X-ray High-Harmonic Source Spanning the Full Water Window at 100 kHz Repetition Rate

Maximilian Karst, Institute of Applied Physics, Germany
Thursday, 15 October 2026, 14:45 – 15:00 
Bright Coherent 13.5-nm Emission from Visible-Light-Driven High-Harmonic Generation

Evaldas Svirplys, Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy, Germany
Thursday, 15 October 2026, 08:30 – 09:00
All-attosecond Pump-Probe Spectroscopy Based on an Ytterbium Laser

 

High-Intensity Lasers and High-Field Phenomena (HILAS)

Victor Koltalo, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, France  
Monday, 12 October 2026, 17:30 – 17:45
1.4 TW, sub-2-cycle Pulses from Double-stage Multi-pass Cell Compression for Yb-based kHz Laser-plasma Acceleration

Deepjyoti Satpathy, Heriot Watt University, UK       
Wednesday, 14 October 2026, 14:00 – 14:30    
Generation of Tunable Sub-2 fs Resonant Dispersive Wave Pulses from an Ytterbium-Based Laser System

Katrin Schulz, TRUMPF Laser GmbH, Germany         
Thursday, 15 October 2026, 09:30 – 09:45
Room-Temperature, Helium-Gas-Cooled Yb:YAG Diode-Pumped Solid-State Laser (DPSSL) Delivering 10 J at 10 Hz

 

Laser Applications Conference (LAC)

Artur Harnik, Vilniaus Universitetas, Lithuania         
Thursday, October 15 2026, 15:00 - 15:45  
3D Printing of Long Afterglow Phosphorescent SrAl2O4:Eu2+,Dy3+ Microstructures

Leander Siegle, Universitat Stuttgart, Germany       
Wednesday, October 14 2026, 9:30 - 10:00       
3D-Printed Diffractive Beam Shapers for Laser Materials Processing

Eulàlia P Puig Vilardell, Vilniaus Universitetas, Lithuania               
Tuesday, October 13 2026, 14:30 - 14:45    
Ablation of Thin Film High Entropy Alloys

Merve Yilmaz, Istanbul Teknik Universitesi, Turkey 
Tuesday, October 13 2026, 16:00 - 17:30     
Optical Response of a Femtosecond Laser Inscribed D-Shaped Waveguide in Ag-Coated Glass

 

Mid-Infrared Coherent Sources (MICS)

Kiran Panigrahi, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India     
Monday, October 12, 2026, 17:30  17:45              
High-Power Femtosecond Deep-Infrared Optical Parametric Oscillator Using Asymmetric Ring Cavity at 7 μm

Ethan Rosenfeld, Stanford University, USA           
Tuesday, October 13, 2026,11: 00 - 11:30            
Telecom-Pumped Mid-Infrared Frequency Comb Generator on Thin-Film Lithium Niobate

Rajaram Shrestha, ELI ALPS Research Institute, Hungary 
Monday, October 12, 2026, 15:00 - 15:15
A Compact Dual-Stage Post-Compression Approach to Single-Cycle, 30 μJ Mid-Infrared Pulses at 100 kHz

 

Emerging Economy Prize Paper Winners

Individuals from emerging economies can opt in during the submission process of any Optica meeting to be considered for special recognition of their presentation. Honorees will be featured on the meetings website and in an upcoming issue of the OPN Journal, and recieve monetary prize of 500 USD.  Highly scored presenters from emerging economies will be selected for recognition.

Congratulations to the Winners!

Berke Ayevi, Koc Universitesi Fen Bilimleri ve Muhendislik Enstitusu, Turkey
Tuesday, October 13, 2026, 14:30- 14:45       
Broadly Tunable Tm3+:LiYF4 Waveguide Laser Operating in the Spectral Ranges of 1677-2029 nm and 2292-2327 nm

Yuri Gordienko, NTUU Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Ukraine             
Thursday, October 15, 2026, 11:00 - 11:15           
Surface Morphology of Micro-Optical 3D Structures Manufactured by Digital Light Processing and Masked Stereolithography

Kiran Panigrahi, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India      
Monday, October 12, 2026, 17:30 - 17:45             
High-Power Femtosecond Deep-Infrared Optical Parametric Oscillator Using Asymmetric Ring Cavity at 7 μm

Md Abu Taher, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India         
Tuesday, October 13, 2026, 16:00- 16:00              
Prestructure-mediated Subwavelength Gratings Formation by Single-pulse Femtosecond Laser Writing on Molybdenum