Program

Professor Rick Trebino

Title: Optics Education: Re-inventing the Lecture

Plenary Speaker

Professor Rick Trebino

Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Physics
USA

Abstract

The academic lecture was invented in ancient Sumer, using a stylus to inscribe cuneiform on a clay tablet. While it was a good idea then, it hasn’t improved in the 5000 years since then. It has even nearly completely sat out the spectacular ongoing digital revolution, continuing to comprise a stark talking head before a bleak black (or white) board. Worse, lecture preparation is quite time-consuming, and teaching materials, such as lecture notes, are not helpful. So, the tedious task of preparing lectures is currently performed independently—and hence massively redundantly—by every teacher on earth. In other words, the world’s current educational-lecture paradigm is analogous to that of books prior to Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press. As a result, lecture preparation by the world’s 50 million post-primary-school instructors currently absorbs tens of billions of human-hours annually, corresponding to a cost of roughly a trillion dollars a year. 

So, it’s time to re-invent the lecture and to do for lectures what Gutenberg did for books. And I’ve done so for two college courses, Modern Physics and Optics. During the pandemic, I created highly polished talking-head-free multimediavideos of all the lectures for the entirety of both courses. And I freely share them with the world, saving students much boredom and stress and lecturers much time—freeing up instructors’ time for more personal interaction with their students. 

In short, I believe that this societal transformation is long overdue, and the resulting better educated population would yield additional benefits for the entire world for the foreseeable future. 

Biography

Rick Trebino was born in Boston on January 18, 1954. He was quite poor as a child, but, on scholarships, he earned his high-school degree from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, his B.A. from Harvard in 1977, and his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1983. Shortly afterward, while at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California, he invented Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating (FROG), the first technique for the complete measurement of an ultrashort laser pulse in time, solving this long-standing famous problem in the field of ultrafast optics and advancing pulse measurement from blurry black-and-white snapshots to high-resolution full-color displays. In 1998, he accepted a Chair at Georgia Tech, where he extended humankind’s measurement capability to the complete spatiotemporal electromagnetic field of even highly complex ultrashort pulses. He currently also develops more advanced approaches to optics and physics education, doing for lectures what Gutenberg did for books. He’s received numerous prestigious awards, including several for his pioneering contributions to optics and physics education, and is a Fellow of four scientific societies. He freely provides his elegant, entertaining, and fully narrated multimedia entire-course video lectures to the world via his web site to encourage the creation of free high-quality video lectures in academia in general.

Joe Sarver

Title: Finding the sweet spot for your laser settings. Optimization is the key if you don't know your settings your guessing

Plenary Speaker

Joe Sarver

Laser R&D Scientist USA

Abstract

I’ve worked in laser bonding, laser marking, laser identification, and laser welding full time for the past 15 years and at least half of my 44 year career while a chemist with numerous patents in this field. Many of these materials are used by aerospace, military, and various applications in space. In order to have these materials bond properly, have the weathering ability and exhibit chemical resistance the window of bonding or marking may be unique for each application. This presentation will review some of the methods to help find these unique bonding and contrast areas. What we call the sweet spot.

Biography

Joseph Sarver has a BS in Chemistry from West Liberty University and a MS in Polymer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He has worked in industry as a chemist & scientist at Bayer, Cerdec, Ciba Specialty Chemical, and Ferro. Twenty five years of his 43 years of experience is in the laser industry with fourteen patents and a patent pending using lasers and infrared reflecting technologies. He has taken products from discovery in the lab to production with a number of commercial products. Currently an Industry Consultant in the areas of organic pigments, inorganic pigments, and compounds for polymers, glass, metals for laser marking and other functional properties.

 Prof. Sib Krishna Ghoshal

Title: Yield Enhancement of Coconut Shell Biomass-derived Graphene: Role of Microwave Irradiation Power Tuning.

Plenary Speaker

Prof. Sib Krishna Ghoshal

University of Technology Malaysia

Abstract

Production of pure graphene at low cost in a sustainable way for diverse high-performance functional applications remains challenging. Based on this fact, we followed a novel approach (rapid and selective microwave irradiation) to attain an improved yield of graphene-like material derived from the coconut shell biomass waste. The effects of various microwave irradiation (MWI) powers (80, 240, and 400 W) on the crystallinity, morphology, and electrochemical properties of the obtained materials were evaluated and compared with the one made without MWI. The derived graphene-like materials were analyzed thoroughly using different analyticalmethods. The FESEM images of the irradiated specimens showed the nucleation of graphene- like morphologies accompanied by some very thin and transparent sheets. The specimen grown at 80 W revealed most excellent quality with the maximum yield, indicating an enhancement inthe carbon contents, decrease in the oxygen functional groups, and improvement in the BET-specific surface area to the extent of 1238.48 m²/g. The electrochemical characteristics of thespecimen prepared at the optimum MWI power of 80 W displayed rectangular profiles as a function of scanning speeds, demonstrating an ideal capacitive behavior referred to electricdouble-layer capacitance. It is established that the proposed systematic and eco-friendly strategy in preparing these high quality graphene-like materials at economical way may open up varied opportunities for commercial applications, leading towards sustainable growth.

Biography

Sib Krishna Ghoshal (Condensed Matter Physicist) is Professor at Physics Department and Laser Center, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. He received PhD from JNU (Delhi) and was postdoctoral fellow at Brandeis University (USA) and IIT (Delhi) & Oxford University (UK). He published over 650 research articles, 18 book chapters and 7 books with Google Scholar h-index of 46, i10-index of 152 and citations of 7372. He received 58 research grants, two patents on the proposed anticancer drug formulation and plasmon humidity sensor, supervised 28 PhD, 80 MSc & 60 Undergraduate theses. He is recognized as Top 2% of Scientists in their Field Worldwide in 2019 and 2021 by Stanford University (USA) ranking

Prof. Sukhdev Roy

Title: Efficient Optogenetic Control of Neuronal and Cardiac Activity

Keynote Speaker

Prof. Sukhdev Roy

Dayalbagh Educational Institute India

Abstract

Optogenetics has made a strong impact in neuroscience by providing unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution in reading and writing neural codes with relatively lower invasiveness. It also enables all-optical control and recording of cellular activity in living tissue and opens up exciting prospects for optical neural prostheses. Recently, the first successful human trial of optogenetic retinal prostheses and promising results in cardiac optogenetics have been demonstrated. Computational modelling of optogenetic systems has made significant contributions in developing a better understanding of the photocurrent dynamics in opsin molecules and the change in membrane potential in opsin-expressing cells in response to light. Computational models help in quick virtual testing of newly developed light-sensitive proteins in different cell types within realistic tissue and organ-level settings. The talk would focus on our recent research in computational optogenetics for low-power, high-fidelity and high-frequency excitation, inhibition and bidirectional control of different neurons in the brain and cardiomyocytes in the heart, with newly discovered light-sensitive proteins and opsin pairs. The study not only provides a better understanding of the mechanism to efficiently control different cells but also allows optimization of their response. Desensitization of photocurrent is a fundamental problem while using faster opsins. Under sustained illumination, the photocurrent in fast opsins desensitizes with time and results in spike failure below a certain threshold. Recently, we have shown that co-expressing step function opsins with fast channelrhodopsins can overcome this challenge. It has also been shown that ultra-low power deep sustained optogenetic excitation or suppression of electrical activity in human cardiomyocytes can be achieved with the newly discovered ChRmine opsin. The future prospects of optogenetics will also be discussed.

Biography

Professor Sukhdev Roy received the PhD. degree from IIT Delhi in 1993 and subsequently joined the Dayalbagh Educational Institute, India, where he is at present the Head of the Department of Physics and Computer Science. He has been a Visiting Professor at many universities that include, Harvard, Waterloo, Würzburg, Osaka, City University and Queen Mary University of London. He has won a number of awards and has published 175 research papers and 11 book chapters and holds 6 UK design patents on drone technology. He was the Guest Editor of the March 2011 Special Issue of IET Circuits, Devices and Systems Journal (UK) on Optical Computing. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Access and a Fellow of SPIE, the Indian National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, India, IETE (India), and Distinguished Fellow of the Optical Society of India. He is also listed in the Stanford’s Study of the Top 2% in World Ranking of Scientists in Optoelectronics and Photonics, 2023.

Prof. Vladimir V. Rumyantsev

Title: Quantum-dimensional effect in the Case of an Imperfect Array of Nanopores Containing Quantum Dots

Speaker

Prof. Vladimir V. Rumyantsev

A.A. Galkin Donetsk Institute for Physics and Engineering Ukraine

Abstract

Due to the advent of nanotechnology and the expansion of the possibilities of their use, interest in the study of dimensional effects has grown. Since modern optoelectronic devices use various photonics applications, from the harvesting of light by nanophotonic waveguides to quantum information processing, the study of the manifestation of the quantum dimensional effect (QDE) in nanocrystalline photonic systems using thin films and multilayer systems, as well as porous structures and quantum dots, is of particular relevance. QDE is associated with the discretization (quantization) of the energy of the corresponding quasi-particles (for example, polaritons) and/or charge carriers and reflects a change in the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of the crystal, manifested if at least one of its geometric dimensions becomes commensurate with the de Broglie wavelength. In this report, the effect of dimensional quantization of the energy spectrum of a nano object is considered using the example of an imperfect photonic lattice - 1D array of micropores containing quantum dots. A spectrum of quasi-particle (polariton) excitations in a two-sublattice 1D chain of micropores (resonators) with a variable period containing quantum dots of the same grade in one of the sublattices is obtained. As an illustration of the QDE, the dependence of the width of the lowest forbidden energy zone in the polariton spectrum on the magnitude of the distances between the pores and the concentration of structural defects is shown.

Biography

Vladimir V. Rumyantsev is Head of Department of Theory of Complex Systems Dynamic Properties at A.A. Galkin Donetsk Institute for Physics and Engineering (DonIPE). He is Professor of Theoretical Physics and Nanotechnology Department at Donetsk National University (DonNU). He received PhD in Theoretical Physics (1988) from DonNU and Dr. Sci. in Condensed Matter Physics (2007) from DonIPE. Prof. Rumyantsev has authored/co-authored 4 books, 2 chapters in books and more than 370 scientific publications. He is a member of Mediterranean Institute of Fundamental Physics (MIFP, Italy) as well as American Physical Society (USA).

Dr. William Todd Penberthy

Title: The Emerging Promise of High-Powered Laser Photobiomodulation Therapy

Keynote Speaker

Dr. William Todd Penberthy

Personalized Health Research Services, LLC, Winter Park, Florida, USA

Abstract

Photobiomodulation therapy (PBMT) first gained widespread in the early 1970s with the 81% successful treatment (10mW; 660nm) of 1,018 otherwise non-healing leg ulcer patients. Today similar treatment modalities (commonly 10-500mW; 660nm) are covered by payers for the treatment of oral mucositis - a side effect occurring in 75-80% of patients with high dose chemotherapy. This simple inexpensive prophylactic red light treatmnt prevents pains with feeding tubes, saving 5,000-30,000$. Even more, non-healing diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) respond to PBMT, and the 5-year mortality rate for DFUs is higher than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined! All the above are low-powered (<0.5W) technologies but these fail for many deep tissue pathologies (knee/spine arthropathies, brain disorders, more). Instead, high-powered (10 - 80W; often pulsed when at highest powers) lasers are needed. High powered lasers are recommended by medical associations (American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons for knee osteoarthritis since 2021, more). Objective/Results – We performed a meta-analysis of controlled trials evaluating high-powered laser treatments (n=47). Statistically significant (p≤0.05) reductions in pain (37 out of 41 studies measuring pain) were observed using an average power of 9.1W (10 median, 1.6-12W range). Knee arthropathy outcomes were most reproducibly positive, while high powered transcranial PBMT are proven in case studies including dementias but remain unexplored in controlled trials. Conclusion – Still under-recognized, we are in the middle of a promising discovery phase of high-powered laser PBMT research and only beginning to characterize the wide range of indications responding favorably to this exceptionally safe and deliverable technology.

Biography

For the past 5 years ongoing W. “Todd” Penberthy has focused on high-powered (~5-80 watts; not ≤0.5W) laser photobiomodulation for deep-tissue pathologies/indications with Aspen Lasers (www.AspenLasers.com). Todd obtained his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Tennessee, Memphis, trained at Tufts New England Medical Center/UCLA, and served as faculty at the University of Cincinnati in drug discovery collaborations before focusing on niacin/NAD for restoration of gene function/good health (www.PHRS-USA.com; password=niacin). He has provided continuing medical education (www.CMESCRIBE.com) services for physician board certification/education and biomedical scientific research/writing services for the past 10 years ongoing.

Subbulakshmi Easwaran

Title: Hybrid Machine Learning for Optimizing Elastic Optical Networks

Speaker

Subbulakshmi Easwaran

University of Texas
USA

Abstract

Elastic optical networks (EONs) have a flexible architecture that allows the transmission of multiple data signals through optical fiber channels. EONs enable dynamic resource management by allocating an appropriate bandwidth for the optical fibers to carry out efficient data transmission.In order to facilitate the quality of the network,this paper provides the application of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) techniques in EONs for routing,modulation and spectrum assignment (RMSA).The agent of the DRL system is trained with suitable policy based algorithms  to considerably reduce the blocking probability .The simulation results validate the better performance  under varying traffic loads when evaluated with other works.The DRL-based EONs is studied by comparing the blocking probability with wide range of channels with that of Markov model and the efficacy of the system is further proved .One of the most crucial decisions in designing a network is optimizing the flow with less fault restoration ratio so as to have a reliable service to the end users by necessiting the minimal downtime.Our novel approach of using Kruskal algorithm in the presented framework mark a significant fault restoration ratio when compared to Prim’s algorithm involved in previous studies.Thus this new application of hybrid machine learning technique may have a greater advantage in delivering an efficient elastic optical networks.

Biography

Subbulakshmi Easwaran has completed her Masters from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering , Anna University , India. She is currently pursuing her doctoral program from the University of Texas San Antonio,USA. Her research areas include communication networks,fiber optics and maching learning.

John Joseph

Title: Nonconventional High Power and High Bandwidth Near Infrared Laser Diode Beams to Connect the World

Speaker

John Joseph

Chief Executive Officer at OptiPulse, Inc
USA

Abstract

One of the first applications envisioned for lasers (and later for laser diodes) was free space optical communication (FSOC) links across short, medium, and long terrestrial distances (meters to thousands of meters) but also across vast distances such as between orbiting satellites and from Earth to Space (and vice versa). It is well known that scintillation changes a uniform optical power signal traveling through the atmosphere to dark and bright spots making it hard to detect and align and is a serious obstacle to the deployment of practical FSOC links. On-chip laser diodes combined into a grouping of mutually noncoherent beams can mitigate data losses due to scintillation and speckle. Increasing the number of laser wavelengths in the single data beam and using an array of photodetectors further decreases the impact of scintillation and related loss mechanisms. We have developed a novel line-of-sight infrared laser diode array technology with very low cost, size, weight, and power usage (CSWaP). Our laser diode arrays, produced using large volume semiconductor wafer processing techniques, can transmit data at up to 25 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) per channel with very low (near zero) bit error ratios approaching state-of-the-art high-speed optical fiber data links and with low divergence angles as needed. We review the design and performance of our novel laser arrays and show via simulations the viability of the technology, for example for Earth to LEO (low Earth orbit) FSOC data links and for links to hard-to-reach remote communities.

Biography

John R. Joseph is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of optiPulse Inc., a photonics start-up company based in New Mexico, USA. John and his co-founders are scientists formerly with Sandia National Laboratories where they performed research on novel nanometer-scale semiconductor photonic devices such as vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs). John has led a plethora of scientific teams at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA) and numerous technology start-up companies in California, Nevada, and elsewhere as Quality Assurance Manager, Director of Manufacturing, compound semiconductor Clean Room Manager, and Director of packaging and testing. John has over 25 published patents.

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