SPIE Photonics West 2017

SPIE Photonics West will offer three technology applications tracks across all three symposia for 2017. The tracks for photonics technologies in 3D printing, brain, and translational research will be overlaid on traditional program tracks in BiOS, LASE, and OPTO when SPIE Photonics West opens in San Francisco 28 January 2017.

SPIE Photonics West 2017 will include over 4500 presentations on light-based technologies across 95 conferences and be the venue for dozens of technical courses for professional development, a diverse business program with more than 25 events, the Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation, the SPIE Startup Challenge, a job fair, and two major exhibitions in the Moscone Center.

Many first-time events are being planned for 2017 at North America’s annual and largest biophotonics, laser, optoelectronics, and industrial manufacturing event, including a half-day forum on the biophotonics marketplace.

Papers accepted in BiOS, LASE, or OPTO and cross-listed in one of these three applications tracks are eligible for a “best paper” award in their respective applications track.

SPIE Fellow Henry Helvajian, senior scientist in the Micro/Nano Technology Department at the Aerospace Corp. (USA), is chairing the 3D printing track, which will cover selective laser melting, laser sintering, conformal photonics, and other topics related to additive manufacturing technologies. Helvajian is a cochair of the laser 3D manufacturing conference in LASE.

The brain applications track will cover innovative techniques in optogenetics and neurophotonics to increase understanding of how the brain functions. Chairs for this track are SPIE Senior Member David Boas (USA), editor-in-chief of the SPIE journal Neurophotonics, and Rafael Yuste of Columbia University (USA), who was instrumental in launching the US Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative in 2013. Yuste and Boas also chair a BiOS program track on neurophotonics, neurosurgery, and optogenetics.

The translational research applications track covers photonics technologies, tools, and techniques with high potential to impact healthcare. It is chaired by SPIE Fellow Bruce J. Tromberg, director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic at University of California, Irvine (USA), and SPIE member Gabriela Apiou of Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Wellman Center for Photomedicine (USA).

Plenary sessions for OPTO and LASE and the Hot Topics session at BiOS will feature some of the top names in biophotonics, lasers, plasmonics, metamaterials, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, gravitational wave astronomy, and optoelectronic devices.

At LASE, plenary speakers will include SPIE Fellow Alberto Pique, head of the Materials and Sensors Branch in the Materials Science Division at the US Naval Research Lab. Pique will provide insight about his work with micro-3D structures. Pique received a Delores M. Etter Top Scientist and Engineer of the Year Award in 2014 for his contributions to the development of laser-based direct-write techniques and their integration with additive manufacturing processes.

Pique is cochairing the laser 3D manufacturing conference at LASE with Helvajian, SPIE Fellow Bo Gu of Bos Photonics (USA), and SPIE members Corey Dunsky, chief technologist at Concept Laser and president and founder of Aeos Consulting (USA), and Jian Liu of PolarOnyx/Laser-Femto (USA). It is one of 16 conferences scheduled throughout the week of Photonics West.

SPIE member and laser scientist Hakaru Mizoguchi, CTO and vice president of Gigaphoton, will give a plenary talk on EUV lithography at the LASE session, and Karsten Danzmann, director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover and the Institute for Gravitational Physics at Leibniz Universität Hannover, will discuss his role in the successful international effort to detect gravitational waves in space.

The LASE program will also include conferences on free-space laser communication, high-power lasers for fusion research, ultrafast optics, and laser materials processing.

Each LASE conference falls under one of four program tracks: laser sources; nonlinear optics and beam guiding; micro/nano applications; and macro applications.

LASE symposium chairs for 2017 are SPIE Fellows Reinhart Poprawe of Fraunhofer-Institut für Lasertechnik (Germany) and Koji Sugioka of RIKEN. Cochairs are SPIE Fellow Yongfeng Lu of University of Nebraska, Lincoln (USA) and Guido Hennig of Daetwyler Graphics (Switzerland).

OPTO has grown into one of the biggest technical and networking forums at Photonics West for those involved with developing a broad range of optical, optoelectronic, and MOEMS-MEMs devices, displays, materials, systems, and technologies, with 34 conferences under eight program tracks.

Presentations will cover the latest in integrated circuits, holographic applications, adaptive optics, silicon photonics, quantum optics, nanoelectronics, microfluidics, LEDs, organic photonic materials, and more. The eight program tracks in OPTO are:

• Advanced quantum and optoelectronic applications
• Displays and holography
• MOEMS-MEMS in photonics
• Nanotechnologies in photonics
• Optical communications
• Optoelectronic materials and devices
• Photonic integration and silicon photonics
• Semiconductor lasers and LEDs

Plenary speakers will include SPIE Fellow Shanhui Fan, whose research group at Stanford University (USA) performs research on the theory and simulation of photonic solid state materials and devices for telecom and information technology applications.

Harald Haas of University of Edinburgh (UK), a pioneer in visible light communication or Li-Fi, will also give a talk at the OPTO plenary session.

Chairing the OPTO symposium 2017 are SPIE Fellow Shibin Jiang of AdValue Photonics (USA) and Jean-Emmanuel Broquin of Institut de Microélectronique Électromagnétisme Photonique/Lab d’Hyperfréquence et Caractérisation (IMEP-LAHC) in France. Connie J. Chang-Hasnain of University of California, Berkeley and SPIE Fellow Graham T. Reed of University of Southampton (UK) are symposium cochairs.

Nearly 6,000 of the 20,000 people expected at Photonics West will be drawn to the BiOS Expo, 28-29 January, and the 45 BiOS conferences encompassing neurophotonics, spectroscopic/microscopic imaging, therapeutic lasers, tissue engineering, biosensors, molecular imaging, nano/biophotonic instrumentation, photodynamic therapy, and related biomedical optics and photonics technologies.

One new conference will focus on advances in imaging technologies for visualization and quantification of local drug distribution in tissue.

Program tracks at BiOS are biomedical spectroscopy, microscopy, and imaging; clinical technologies and systems; nano/biophotonics; neurophotonics, neurosurgery, and optogenetics; photonic therapeutics and diagnostics; and tissue optics, laser-tissue interaction, and tissue engineering.

Symposium chairs for BiOS are SPIE Fellows James Fujimoto of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) and R. Rox Anderson of the Wellman Center, MGH, and Harvard Medical School (USA).

Speakers for the popular Hot Topics session at BiOS will include SPIE Fellows Zhongping Chen and Alberto Diaspro and SPIE member Richard Levenson.

Chen, of University of California, Irvine (USA), will discuss functional optical coherence tomography (OCT), and Diaspro, of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italy), will give a talk on “The Extra Microscope.”

Levenson, of University of California, Davis Medical Center (USA), will discuss UV surface excitation for slide-free tissue microscopy

Other Hot Topics speakers, who have confirmed, and their topics, if known, are:

• Robert Alfano, professor at City College of New York/City University of New York (USA), noninvasive optical biopsy
• Christopher Contag of Stanford University (USA)
• Emilia Entcheva of George Washington University (USA), cardiac optogenetics
• Enrico Gratton of University of California, Irvine (USA), fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy to image live cells
• Hideaki Koizumi of Hitachi (Japan), diffuse optics
• Lev T. Perelman of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard University (USA), biomedical imaging and spectroscopy with scattered light

In addition to the biophotonics marketplace forum, which will cover the global markets for optics and biophotonics, the industry program will provide many opportunities to network with other engineers, managers, entrepreneurs, and scientists and a wide variety of business information.

Topics for workshops and panel discussions during the week will include photodetectors for LIDAR systems; displays for virtual reality and augmented reality systems; the impact of recent political changes on the photonics industry; business startups; and changes to the US Munitions List that will impact what technologies and devices can be exported to non-US countries.

The 2017 Photonics West Exhibition,31 January to 2 February, will have more than 1250 companies showing devices, components, lasers, and systems for many applications including photonics manufacturing.

Optics and photonics experts will begin judging applications for the 2017 Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation in late October.

The competition for the most innovative optics and photonics products and technologies newly available on the open market culminates in a gala awards ceremony during SPIE Photonics West on 1 February 2017.

SPIE has organized the competition since 2008 with the sponsorship of Photonics Media.

Categories include additive manufacturing; displays and lighting; alternative lighting; detectors and sensors; imaging and cameras; industrial lasers; scientific lasers; materials and coatings; optics and optical components; optical communications; biomedical instrumentation; and other metrology instrumentation.

Applications are due 7 October.

Registration and more details for  SPIE Photonics West.

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