Optical Components and Materials XXII

Active and passive optical components are playing key roles in current optical communication networks, optical sensors, and medical optical devices. Extensive research continues to be carried out to improve their performance and functionality, and to reduce their size and cost. Areas of research that are particularly active include high-power fiber lasers, switches, filters, ultra-short-pulse fiber lasers, as well as material research in rare-earth-doped glasses, semiconductors, and nano-particles for enabling innovative photonic devices. There is also significant activity in developing components in lightwave circuits, which will ultimately reduce manufacturing cost while integrating multiple active and passive functions on a single chip.

The purpose of this conference is to bring together researchers and engineers from academia and industry to discuss recent developments in these rapidly advancing fields. Suggested topics include:

• rare-earth-doped devices and materials
• rare-earth-doped or metal-doped glasses, crystals, polymers, semiconductors, hybrid materials, and fibers
• spectroscopy of rare-earth ions and other laser species
• graphene and carbon nanotubes
• new materials for mode-locking
• nanoparticles
• quantum dots
• fiber amplifiers design and fabrication
• waveguide lasers and amplifiers
• UV to far-infrared fiber lasers
• cladding-pumped lasers and amplifiers
• Raman laser and amplifiers
• Brillouin lasers
• broadband fiber sources
• semiconductor-based lasers and amplifiers
• optical switches, modulators, and other devices
• optical nonlinearities in fibers and waveguides
• lithium niobate bulk-optic and waveguide devices
• thermal and UV poling of silica and other glasses
• electro-optic poled sol-gels
• progress in lithium niobate electro-optic modulators
• nonlinear frequency converters
• photonic-bandgap fibers and devices
• plasmonic devices and technologies
• sub-wavelength optical elements
• photosensitivity in fibers and planar waveguides
• photosensitivity in glasses and polymers
• filters, reflectors, and other grating-based devices
• fiber and waveguide Bragg gratings
• long-period fiber gratings
• modeling glass structure and defects arising from UV irradiation
• novel passive and active components for dense WDM
• tunable filters and add-drop filters
• device packaging, testing, and reliability
• devices for optical interconnect
• detectors
• SWIR photodetectors
• single-photon detectors
• silicon-based photodetectors
• low-noise detection architectures
• unique detector materials and special spectral regions
• progress in MEMS-based detectors
• detectors with gain.