See What's In Earth's Future― And Out In Space Now ― At SPIE Optics And Photonics

This summer’s SPIE Optics and Photonics symposium and exhibition in San Diego will preview newtechnologies for sustainable energy and lighting, climate and cropland monitoring, computing, healthcare, and other vital areas of life,and provide insights on what is in outer space― perhaps even headed in Earth’s direction. The event is the largest international, multidisciplinary optical sciences and technology meeting in North America.

In a sneak preview of the future, researchers, engineers, and industry suppliers will present technologies with applications in multiple and diverse areas of life at the annual SPIE Optics and Photonics symposium in San Diego, California, 25-29 August.Organized by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, the event is the largest international, multidisciplinary optical sciences and technology meeting in North America, with approximately 4,500 expected attendance.

Technical conferences in the event’s four symposia(NanoScienceand Engineering, Solar Energy and Technology, Organic Photonics andElectronics, and Optical Engineering and Applications) will offermore than 3,200 presentationsincluding plenary and other featured talks on topicssuch as:

• The asteroid-tracking and collision-mitigation planetary defense system DE-STAR (directed energy solar targeting of asteroids and exploration), by Philip Lubin, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Kepler’s search for Earth-like planets, by Jon Jenkinsof the SETI Institute, NASA Ames Research Center
• Nanoparticletechnology to convert solar energy directly into saturated steam ideal for sterilizing medical tools or waste, by the team led by Naomi Halas of Rice University
• Metamaterials for molded optical wavefronts, offering potential for much thinner, lighter lenses and other optical surfaces in applications such as medical devices, communications, computing equipment, and cameras, by Federico Capasso of Harvard University; Capasso will be awarded the Gold Medal of the Society during an annual awards banquet during the week
• Mars Rover Curiosity mission highlights, including details on the French- and U.S.-built ChemCam laser remote sensing device, by Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Lab
• Optical transport, sorting and self-arrangement using a “tractor beam,” by a team lead byOtoBrzobohatýand PavelZemánek of the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the ASCR and TomášCižmár of the University of St. Andrews
• Recent views on the nature of light, and how they can be extended seamlessly to a unified view of the observable universe, by Carver Mead (California Institute of Technology)
• Newhighly efficient, rare-metal-free materials for OLEDs in smartphone and other displays, by Hideyuki Murata and AtulaSandanayaka, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
• The optical imaging science behind systems for the Red Bull StratosProject, which enabled Felix Baumgartner ‘s record-breaking  skydive from 127,852 feet; byJoseph Houston of Houston Research Associates, and Red Bull Stratos team members Dennis Fisher of Genesis Applied Imaging and Jay Nemethof Flight Line Films.

This year’s new conferences cover:

• Nanoimaging and Nanospectroscopy
• LED-based Illumination Systems
• Ultrafast Imaging and Spectroscopy
• X-Ray Nanoimaging: Instruments and Methods.

A special “Tribute to H. John Caulfield,” conference and its resulting proceedingswill celebrate Caulfield’s pioneering contributions to the fields of holography and information optics.His numerous inventions include local reference beam holography, coherence gated imaging, generalized matched filters, optical linear algebra, fuzzy optical metrology, artificial color, and passive conservative interferometric logic gates.

More than 40 professional development courses and workshops are being offered, for training at introductory and advanced levels in core concepts in optical and systems engineering, optomechanics, manufacturing, remote sensing, astronomical optics, and more. New courses include:

• Useful Lens Design Methods
• Introduction to Electro-Optical Systems Design
• Fundamentals and Applications of Spectroscopic Ellipsometry
• The Proper Care of Optics.

The free-admission, three-day exhibition (27-29 August) will showcase 240 suppliers of optical components, detectors, sensors, cameras, lasers, optoelectronics, and other hardware and software for manufacturing, measurement, and research. A job fair running the first two days will connect employers with job-seekers, and product demonstrations will be scheduled throughout the exhibition. A special section of the exhibition will be devoted to displays by SPIE Student Chapters demonstrating their activities in increasing science awareness and literacy in their regions.

Students will also have the opportunity to enter their optics and photonics educational projects in the Optics Outreach Olympics, and approximately 200 will participate in a Student Chapter Leadership Workshop at the beginning of the week.

Targetednetworking events include a Women in Optics reception with a presentation byKathy Perkins, director of PhET Interactive Simulations at University of Colorado Boulder, on “Finding the Right Fit: From Atmospheric Scientist to Educating the Next Generation of Scientists Worldwide”;a StudentLunch with the Experts; and the SPIE Fellows luncheon, honoring several new Fellows named in 2013 andfeaturing a presentation by Harry Atwater(California Institute of Technology) on “The Exciting Past, Tumultuous Present, and Abundant Future of Solar Energy.”

About SPIE
SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. The Society serves more than 235,000 constituents from approximately 155 countries, offering conferences, continuing education, books, journals, and a digital library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange, professional networking, and patent precedent. SPIE provided over $3.2M in support of education and outreach programs in 2012.