Novel Optical Materials and Applications (NOMA)

Plenary Speakers

Katarzyna Balakier

European Space Agency, United Kingdom

Satellite Optical and Quantum Communication- Present Capabilities and Future Opportunities

The talk will focus on the evolution of and recent advancements in Satellite Optical and Quantum Communication. These include ESA's flagship mission, HydRON (High-thRoughput Optical Network), and the creation of a new initiative dedicated to the development of the Quantum Information Network (QIN). The emphasis is placed on the multi-orbital network that can be seamlessly integrated with the existing terrestrial fiber network as well as the development of optical and photonics technology under the ESA ScyLight program.

About the Speaker

Dr Kasia Balakier is Optical & Quantum Communication Technology Manager at European Space Agency (ESA). She is responsible for the implementation of ESA Strategic Programme Line in Optical and Quantum Communication – Scylight.

Prior to joining ESA, Kasia was a Lecturer at University College London (UCL). She was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Fellowship to support her research in integrated photonics for space.

In addition to her academic career, she worked as Senior System Engineer and Expert in Telecom Payload Photonics at Airbus, where she was involved in development and implementation of optical systems for Telecommunication and Earth Observation satellites.
 

Polina Bayvel

University College London, United Kingdom

What Will You Use Those Extra GPUs For? Designing Scalable Optical Networks for an AI-Driven World

To support growing data demands, partly driven by AI applications, optical networks must deliver massive capacity with intelligence and efficiency. However, optical networks are not just sets of transparent pipes, they have physical transmission and graph properties which must be integrated into the network design – both for new networks and to evolve existing network infrastructure.  Optimising over tens of formats, hundreds of independent channels over thousands of kms through brute force optimisation is hard, if not impossible! Reduction of complexity is key. By integrating advanced optimisation and machine learning, we must learn to design that match the complexity of future applications and the talk will look at some possible direction to achieve this.

About the Speaker

Professor Polina Bayvel is the Head of the Optical Networks Group at UCL, which she founded in 1994. Her research focuses on optical communications and networks, including intelligent optical networks, wavelength routing, high-speed transmission and fiber nonlinearity mitigation.

After completing her PhD, she worked as a systems engineer at STC Submarine Systems (now Alcatel) and Nortel, specializing in optical transmission and network planning. In 1994, she received a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and established the first academic systems engineering group in optical networks at UCL.

A Fellow of the Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, IEEE, and Optica, she was awarded a CBE in 2017 for services to engineering. She is the first woman to receive the Thomas Young Medal (2021) and the Royal Society Rumford Medal (2023). In 2024, she was honored with the Humboldt Research Prize.

Bayvel has authored over 500 journal and conference papers, led the EPSRC Programme Grant UNLOC (2012-2018) and currently leads the EPSRC Programme Grant TRANSNET (2018-2024), which aims to revolutionize optical networks using machine learning and intelligent transceivers. She advocates for secure, low-delay, high-capacity communications infrastructure to support the digital economy and transformative technologies.
 

Jean-Jacques Greffet

Institut d'Optique, France

Light Emissions by Solids: A Unified Model

Light emission by electronic excitations of a solid is often described using a list of microscopic processes such as incandescence, fluorescence, electroluminescence, scintillation, cathodoluminescence and light emission by inelastic tunneling. These processes are associated with electronic transitions, but no quantitative theories are available for most of them. One difficulty is that beyond the microscopic transition responsible for the emission in the bulk, it is necessary to model the extraction of the photon out of the emitter. On the other hand, electrical engineers can compute emissions by currents in complex environments such as cavities or antennas, which modify drastically the process. We will present in the talk a general framework that reconciles the two points of view and can be used to derive a quantitative model of light emission by solids. We will explore applications to thermal emission and electroluminescence, photoluminescence by metals, laser and photon Bose-Einstein condensation.

About the Speaker

Jean-Jacques Greffet is an alumnus of Ecole Normale de Paris-Saclay. He received his PhD in solid-state physics in 1988 from Université Paris-Sud, working in light scattering by rough surfaces. Between 1994 and 2005, he worked on the theory of image formation in near-field optics. Since 1998, he made a number of seminal contributions to the field of thermal radiation at the nanoscale, including the demonstration of coherent thermal sources and the giant radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale due to surface phonon polaritons. Since 2000, he has contributed to the field of quantum plasmonics and light emission with nanoantennas and metasurfaces. He is an Optica fellow and the recipient of the Ixcore Foundation prize and the Servant prize of the French Academy of Science.
 

Anna Tauke-Pedretti

DARPA, USA

Photonic Integrated Circuit Scaling Pathways

This talk will share recent DARPA program investments for increasing the size and complexity of photonic integrated circuits. It will also discuss the challenges and opportunities the creation of these circuits present. The needed ecosystem advancements to increase access to and further mature photonic integrated circuit technology will also be covered.

About the Speaker

Dr. Anna Tauke-Pedretti is a program manager in DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office. Her research interests include compound semiconductor devices, optoelectronics, microelectronics manufacturing and heterogeneously integrated microsystems. She was a manager and technical staff member at Sandia National Laboratories from 2008 to 2022.  At Sandia, she managed and led research efforts in photonic integrated circuits, high-power microelectronics, focal plane arrays and microelectronics security. Tauke-Pedretti has co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications and conference proceedings and holds 14 patents. She received Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Iowa, as well as Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

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Invited Speakers

Nonlinear Photonics (NP)

Novel Optical Materials and Applications (NOMA)

• Cheng-Wei Qiu, National University of Singapore, Singapore
  When Metasurfaces meet with 2D Materials Keynote
• Yury Gogotsi, Drexel University, United States
  Optical Properties and Applications of a Large Family of Metallic 2D Nanosheets - MXenes Tutorial
• John Bernardin, Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States
  Challenges and Advancements in the Additive Manufacturing of Optical Components using Laser Directed Energy Deposition
• Catherine Boussard-Pledel, Universite de Rennes I, France
  Infrared Glass Optical Fibers for Sensing and Diagnosis
• Chaohao Chen, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
  Seeing the Invisible with Nanomaterials
• Hou-Tong Chen, Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States
  Light-Driven Nanoscale Vectorial Currents and Ultrafast Terahertz Radiation Generation in Optoelectronic Metasurfaces
• Zhanghai Chen, Xiamen University, 
  Polaritonics for 2D Materials
• Michael Fokine, Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan, Sweden
  Strategies for Glass Additive Manufacturing
• David Grojo, CNRS, France
  New Dimensions Open to Ultrafast Laser Silicon Modifications
• Gregor Koblmüller, Technische Universität Munchen, Germany
  Progress in Monolithically Integrated III-V Nanowire Lasers on Silicon
• Ziyuan Li, Beijing University of Technology, China
  Semiconductor Nanostructure Array Based Photo Detectors for Multispectral Imaging
• Naoji Matsuhisa, University of Tokyo, 
  Skin-conformable Sensors and Displays Using Stretchable Optoelectronic Materials
• Dudukovic Nikola, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, United States
  3D Printing of Complex Glass Structures and Gradient-Index Optics
• Carsten Ronning, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany
  Ion Beams for Photonic Integrated Circuits
• Brandon Shaw, US Naval Research Laboratory, 
  Single Crystal Fiber Growth and Applications
• K. Kay Son, HRL Laboratories, LLC, United States
  Phase-change Materials-based Electrically-Reconfigurable IR Metasurfaces
• Ugur Tegin, Koç Universitesi, Turkey
  Energy-efficient Integrated Photonic Neural Networks
• Anastasia Zaleska, King's College London, United Kingdom
  Plasmonic Metamaterials for Optical Sensing and Photocatalysis
• Yang Zhao, Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
  Visualizing Ultrafast Photothermal Dynamics with Decoupled Optical Force Nanoscopy

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Student Paper Competition

The papers submitted to the competition were reviewed during the standard Technical Program Committee (TPC) review process, which resulted in 14 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 Winners!

Integrated Photonics Research, Silicon and Nanophotonics (IPR)

Ana M Statie, C2N, France (IM4A.4)
Hybrid integration of Erbium-doped oxides on Silicon Nitride platforms for light amplification

Novel Optical Materials and Applications (NOMA)

Ishika Das, University of Manchester, UK (NoM4D.3)
Efficient Second Harmonic Generation in Room-Temperature Ferroelectric Nematic Liquid Crystals

Signal Processing in Photonic Communications (SPPCom)

​Alessandro Gagliano, Politecnico di Milano, Italy (SpTu1F.2)
Joint Sensing and Quantum Key Distribution for Invulnerable Access Networks

Solar, Lighting, and Thermal Photonics (SOLITH)

Mathis Degeorges, Princeton University, USA (SM2E.3)
Micropatterned Directional Emitters for Passive Thermoregulation of Vertical Facades

Photonic Networks and Devices (Networks)

Haojun Jiang, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China (NeTh2C.1)
Comprehensive Investigations of the Design for C+L-band Multi-pump Raman Amplifiers

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