Winter College on Optics 2015

The ICTP Winter College on Optics will be held 9-20 February 2015 and will cover all aspects of optical-based space observing systems.

Organized every year by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, and co-sponsored by SPIE and other organizations, the Winter College is open to scientists and students from all countries that are members of the United Nations, UNESCO, or the International Atomic Energy Agency.

SPIE member Joseph Niemela is the local organizer, along with Miltcho Danailov.

Directors for 2015 are Angela Piegari (Optical Coatings Laboratory-ENEA, Italy), Errico Armandillo (European Space Agency,  Netherlands), and W. Chen, (Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, China).

An ICTP Preparatory School will be held the week before the College (2-6 February 2015) for selected participants. The Preparatory School will provide background tutorials and exercises to help the participants in following the College lectures.

The theme for 2015 is Light: A Bridge Between Earth and Space, and lectures will cover optical-based observing systems and advanced light-based technologies. The lectures are divided into three parts: optics and photonics components; instruments and technologies; and space applications.

Topics include photonic sensors; passive and active instrumentation; optical atomic clocks, cooled atom physics, laser guide stars, space meteorology, climatology, atmospheric research, gravimetry, astronomy, telecom, navigation, cosmology, and planetology.

Applications for the Winter College on Optics 2015 are due 20 October 2014.

Besides the ICTP and SPIE, other collaborators are the International Commission for Optics (ICO), the Optical Society of America (OSA), the European Optical Society (EOS), the Societa Italiana di Ottica e Fotonica (SIOF), the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and the International Society on Optics Within Life Sciences (OWLS).

Support from SPIE also includes $30,000 annually to support an optics staff position at ICTP and free SPIE Digital Library access in participating countries through the eJDS (eJournals Delivery Service) program. Articles from scientific literature, primarily in physics and mathematics, are provided to individual scientists at the ICTP.

In addition, SPIE helps to fund an ICTP laboratory available to participants from developing nations pursuing novel research. The lab is housed at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nuclear (INFN) and run in collaboration with the Institute for Nanoelectronics, Technische Universität München.

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