SPIE Photonics Europe 2016

An industry program focused on successful commercialization of photonics technologies combines with 18 technical conferences on high-power lasers, nanophotonics, biophotonics, graphene, micro-optics, and other topics at SPIE Photonics Europe in Brussels this spring.

The SQUARE Brussels Meeting Centre will host the biennial event, 3-7 April, which will include an exhibition on 5-6 April with the Photonics Innovation Village competition and the European Village.

More than 1200 scientists, engineers, and photonics industry representatives are expected to make presentations in the conferences, workshops, and seminars during SPIE Photonics Europe, and the “Hot Topics in Photonics” speakers will deliver talks on such topics as microscopy, quantum physics, and lasers.

Ferenc Krausz of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Physics (Germany) and SPIE Fellow Miles Padgett of University of Glasgow (UK) are among the Hot Topics speakers during the week. Also scheduled at the Hot Topics sessions are SPIE Fellow David D. Sampson of Western Australia; SPIE member John Dudley of Université Franche-Comte (France), chairman of the International Year of Light (IYL2015) steering committee; Sarah Bohndiek of University of Cambridge (UK); and Cesar Jauregui Misas of Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena.

A daylong industry program with sessions dedicated to the business of photonics will be on Wednesday, 6 April. Speakers include Michael Liehr of the State University of New York (SUNY) Polytechnic Institute and CEO of the newly established American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics); Stephen G. Anderson, industry and market strategist for SPIE who will provide an update on the ongoing SPIE analysis of the global photonics industry; and Wolfgang Boch, head of the EC’s Photonics Unit who will discuss funding under the Horizon 2020 research framework. The EU has announced it will invest almost €16 billion in research and innovation in the next two years for the second work program under Horizon 2020.

James Regan, CEO of EFFECT Photonics (Netherlands), will moderate a panel discussion on moving technology to market. Panelists include SPIE member Ruth Houbertz, CEO of Multiphoton Optics (Germany); Juergen Stuhler, senior director of Quantum Technologies at TOPTICA Photonics (Germany); Tim Harper, cofounder of G20 Water (UK); and SPIE member Daniel Guillot, CEO of Fibercryst (France).

Other special events during the week include a workshop on optical glass and materials sponsored by SCHOTT, a graphene workshop, and the two “villages” within the exhibit hall.

The Photonics Innovation Village, organized by B-PHOT and supported by SPIE, is a competition for startups to encourage commercialization of optics and photonics research and technology into useful products. Participating teams receive a complimentary minibooth in a high-traffic section of the exhibition hall to showcase their products and technology, and they compete for awards of up to €1500 from the Brussels Capital Region government.

VUB is also organizing the European Village, an area of the exhibition hall for EU-funded consortia to show their projects and prototypes.

A daylong workshop 5 April on the commercialization of graphene will have sessions on integrated photonic devices for data communications, IR, and THz applications in detection and sensing, wafer-scale processing, and integration. Frank Koppens of the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Barcelona and Nathalie Vermeulen of B-PHOT, the Brussels Photonics Team at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), are cochairs. (See related article on graphene.)

The week's events begin with a SPIE Student Chapter Leadership workshop on Sunday along with conferences on silicon photonics, nanophotonics, and optical sensing and detection.

General chairs for SPIE Photonics Europe are Ronan Burgess, deputy head of the Photonics Unit at the European Commission, and SPIE Fellows Francis Berghmans of VUB, Peter Hartmann of SCHOTT (Germany), and Jürgen Popp of Friedrich Schiller Universitat Jena (Germany). SPIE Fellow Hugo Thienpont of VUB is honorary chair.

Cosponsoring organizations are B-PHOT, Photonics 21, FWO Research Foundation Flanders, the Knowledge Transfer Network, and Visit Brussels. The European Optical Society is a cooperating organization.

More information about SPIE Photonics Europe: spie.org/EPE.

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