Symposium Sessions

Please contact the symposium organizers with questions.

Since the invention of lasers, the response of materials to laser radiation has been intensively explored. The exposure of matter to high fluence conditions has been shown to produce nonlinear optical phenomena such as nonlinear absorption, refraction and multiphoton absorption. Materials science for laser applications has focused on areas like dye synthesis, isotropic optical slab fabrication, polymer hosts and semiconductors. Advanced materials fabrication has made possible new classes of nonlinear materials, including organic glasses with very long excited state lifetimes, organic polymers that have strong infrared optical response, metalenses, optofluidic materials and semiconductor glasses. These materials respond identically when the source and observer are interchanged. Non-reciprocal photonic materials break this constraint and make possible optical devices that operate in one direction. Optical platforms having asymmetric behavior are possible, including optical diodes, beam steering devices and high performance holograms. Modern fabrication technology makes possible materials with polarization and propagation control on the subwavelength scale, for example nonhermitian flat lenses and micron-scale optical diodes. There is a need for machine learning strategies and beam propagation modeling methods that solve the problem of converting user specifications into a flat lens design as well as the reverse problem of inventing new simple design principles enabling users to design a flat lens system towards their specifications. Addressing this challenge will require the investigation of light-matter interactions, advancement of theoretical modeling, as well as the development of synthesis, processing and fabrication methodologies. This symposium will focus on recent developments and advances in light-responding materials, characterization techniques, new simulation methods, machine learning, prediction of optical effects, and novel applications. New devices utilizing recently discovered optical phenomena are also of interest to this symposium.

Topics will include:

• Nonlinear absorption, refraction and scattering, aggregation-induced emission, spectroscopy of organic materials
• Fabrication and physics of optical cavities, metalenses. optofluidics, nonlinear gradient index optics, nonhermitian metamaterials
• Molecule-quantum dot interfaces, multiexcitonic processes in quantum dots
• Chromophore glasses with very long excited state lifetimes, room temperature phosphorescence, thermally assisted delayed fluorescence, enhancement of spontaneous emission
• Theoretical models of optical switches, waveguides, optical diodes, nonhermitian metamaterials, flat lenses and other device platforms
• Calculation of nonlinear susceptibility, vibrational relaxation and energy transfer
• New materials discovery and development of design principles by machine learning, beam propagation modeling
• Nonlinear material synthesis, quantum-dot-chromophore hybrids
• Chromophore guest-solid host systems, ormosils, sol-gel chemistry, hybrid materials including nanoparticle suspensions and dispersions
• Organic infrared responding polymers, chalcogenide glasses, perovskites
• Structured optical materials based on self-assembly or nanofabrication technology

Invited Speakers:

• Theodore Goodson III (University of Michigan, USA)
• Daniel Gryko (Polish Academy of Science, Poland)
• Victor Klimov (Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA)
• Amanda Morris (Virginia Tech, USA)
• Daniel Gamelin (University of Washington, USA)
• Jason Azoulay (The University of Southern Mississipi, USA)
• Justin Caram (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
• Steven Flom (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, USA)
• Cesar Lopes (Swedish Defence Research Agency, Sweden)
• Stephane Parola (Université de Lyon, France)
• Matthew Pelton (University of Maryland, USA)
• Jeffrey Rack (The University of New Mexico, USA)
• Akshay Rao (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)

Symposium Organizers