8^th International Conference and Exhibition on Lasers, Optics & Photonics Nov 15-17, 2017 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Hideyoshi Horimai has received his PhD from The University of Tokyo. In 1998, he has invented the original holographic storage technology, so-called Collinear Holography, its disk format was approved at world first International Standard as "HVD" in 2007. His other developments were holographic 3D-image printer system, 360-degree 3D display, digital holographic microscope and holographic window for BIPV.

In the field of the hologram, there are two big walls to disturb the development and market growth. First big wall is the holographic media production issue. Such as a photopolymer material is very useful for creating the hologram contents, however, available products and supply roots are strictly limited in the world. To make a solution to this first wall, we have started photopolymer production in Japan with an overseas photopolymer development company by the technological cooperation. Second big wall is the limitation of the expression methods for hologram contents and holographic pictures. An external light source has been mandatory for observing the sufficient quality of holographic image. To make a solution to this second wall, we proposed the brand-new illumination unit by using holographic technology. The unit thickness was only 1 mm and has a transparency; it looks like a just plane glass. In spite of this, the light can be lead from the edge of this glass and emit from the surface with certain angle. Therefore, this illumination unit can be set very close to the hologram content or hologram picture, i.e. enables to combine with them as an photo-frame. In Japanese, usually the picture pronounces /e/ or /ga/, and a frame is a rim in English. Therefore, this unit is so-called “Ega-rim”. By using the Ega-rim laboratory proto-type, basic performance was proven experimentally. We hope everybody can enjoy a hologram easily by using Ega-rim and open up the hologram market worldwide.

Simon Fafard was a Co-founder & President of Azastra, an innovative Canadian optoelectronic company which got recently acquired by Broadcom (large public company in the sector). He has been focused on optoelectronic at uSherbrooke and at Azastra, a corporation that commercialized laser power converter products based on the new VEHSA technology. He has an h-index of 45 and is the inventor of over 30 patents. He raised over $20M of private and venture capital funding and also obtained numerous research grants. He led Cyrium to become a manufacturer of one of the highest performance multijunction III-V solar cells and led Azastra to manufacture the highest performance phototransducer products. As an entrepreneur, he cumulates over 25 years of experience in Optoelectronics and Photonics while developing and commercializing numerous devices and products in the industry at Azastra, Aton, Cyrium, Alcatel Optronics, Kymata, and also in research labs at uSherbrooke, NRC, and UCSB.

Optical to electrical power converting semiconductor devices are achieved with breakthrough performance using a Vertical Epitaxial HeteroStructure Architecture (VEHSA design). The devices allow achieving a near-optimum responsivity, an improved photovoltage output compared to p/n junctions with standard thicknesses and low series resistance and shunting effects yielding high fill-factor values. The ultrahigh conversion efficiencies were obtained by monolithically integrating several thin GaAs photovoltaic junctions tailored with submicron absorption thicknesses and grown in a single crystal by epitaxy. Unique experimental evidence of the significant impact of photon recycling in these photovoltaic devices has been observed. The devices exhibited a near optimum responsivity of up to 0.645A/W for tuned excitation conditions or at high optical intensities for spectral detuning values of up to ~25 nm and corresponding to an external quantum efficiency of ~94%. These devices have now available as products manufactured by Broadcom and recent progresses will be covered, including: -The highest optical to electrical efficiency ever achieved; -The highest output powers ever reported for a high-efficiency monolithic PV cell with 5.87W of converted output from a CW laser; -The highest efficiencies ever reported for any types of optical to electrical power conversion devices simultaneously combining high photovoltage and output powers (> 5W at > 7V with > 60% efficiency and > 3W at > 14V with > 60% efficiency); -The highest efficiency ever reported of 61.8% with a significantly detuned optical input; -The highest photovoltage ever reported for monolithic photovoltaic semiconductor heterostructures with measured Voc > 23V; The thinnest p/n junctions ever implemented successfully with highperformance, with ultra-thin GaAs bases as small as 24 nm.

Tatiana Yakovleva has graduated with honors from the Moscow Engineering-Physics Institute and has completed her PhD in Optics. She has been awarded by the Royal British Society Post-doctoral fellowship. The scientific interests cover the issues of nonlinear optics, wave front reversal, the light and ultrasound waves scattering in inhomogeneous medium, the mathematical methods of the Rician signals analysis, etc. In 1915, she got a degree of Doctor of Science in Physics and Mathematics. She has published more than 120 papers in reputed journals.

The technique of the narrowband optical signal processing by means of the joint estimation of both the informative signal’s component and the speckle-noise level has appeared to become an efficient tool at solving the tasks in various fields of optics and photonics. The envelope of a signal being formed from the initially determined component under the inevitable Gaussian noise influence obeys to the Rice statistical distribution, first formulated by S. Rice in 1944 as an extension of the classical Rayleigh distribution. The Rice statistical model describes a wide range of the signal processing problems in the tasks when the output signal is composed as a sum of the sough-for initial signal and a random noise generated by many independent normally-distributed summands, what always takes place at the optical signal propagation in a medium. Recently a new concept of the so-called twoparameter analysis has been developed and mathematically substantiated providing an accurate joint estimation of both the signal and the noise values without any a-priory assumptions concerning the process. The methods of the Rician signal’s two-parameter analysis, based on the mathematical statistics’ principles, form the theoretical foundation for a fundamentally new approach to solving a wide variety of scientific and applied tasks, including the investigation of an optical medium’s properties, the implementation of the high precision phase measurements in optical metrology systems, etc. The two-parameter analysis techniques have been tested both numerically and in physical experiments. One of the important applications of such an approach is being realized in a recently elaborated method of measuring the medium’s electro-optical (EO) coefficient, based on analyzing the statistical characteristics of the modulated reflected optical wave. The two-parameter analysis of the signal’s envelope has been shown to provide an efficient reconstruction of the useful, non-distorted signal component against the speckle noise background, thus ensuring the more correct evaluation of the EO coefficient than provided by the traditional linear regression technique, based upon measuring the total, noisecontaminated reflected signal. Besides, the application of the two-parameter technique significantly simplifies the experimental setup and decreases the required number of measurements. Another perspective application of the developed technique concerns the phase shift determination at quasiharmonic signals’ interferometry in optical metrology.

Amur Margaryan has completed his PhD from Yerevan Physics Institute and continued studies in the field of Experimental Nuclear Physics at Yerevan Physics Institute; Serpukhov proton accelerator, Serpukhov, Moscow region; JLab, Newport News, VA, USA; MAX-lab, Lund, Sweden; GRAAL experiment at European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France. He is the Leading Scientific Researcher at A I Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute). He has published more than 150 papers in reputed journals. He holds one Soviet Union and one US patent. His current research interest is in ultrafast photon detectors and optoelectronic devices.

A time-tagged, time-resolved single photon THz counting system, based on the recently-developed, GHz, radio-frequency photomultiplier tube (RF PMT) is considered. The detection and readout systems of the RF PMT are based on commercial multichannel plates, electron bombardment avalanche photodiodes and regular nanosecond electronics. The proposed technique is capable of detecting single photons with 1 ps resolution over virtually unlimited time spans. Over a period of around 100 ns the technique is capable of THz rates, while longer term average rates of up to GHz can be achieved. In principle, with a dedicated spiral scanning system and electron detector, the rate could be increased up to the THz level. Possible application in Quantum Astronomy is discussed.

Toshihiro Kasezawa graduated from Shizuoka University in 1984. And he managed many companies of the technical system. He is an Inventor of Holo-Window. In 2012, he applied a patent of the hologram research and development "stereoimage projection device". In 2013, he applied a patent of the hologram research and development "collecting mechanism, light of the sun electrical generator, window structure and windowpane". He won the Best Paper Award at IWH (International Workshop on Holography and Related Technologies) 2015 Okinawa and also IWH 2016 Taiwan. His article "Holographic window for solar power generation" was appeared in the Optical Review (2016).

In case of building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV), photovoltaic materials are used to replace conventional building materials. Additionally the vehicle-integrated photovoltaic (VIPV) is argued that the hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) create an opportunity for PV to serve as an energy source for the transport sector. However Conventional PV unit is Solid and Shade, it means the total construction cost becoming considerably high. Our research aims to develop high-value technology that make open up new markets and accelerate the expansion of the field of introduction of the photovoltaic power generation. We have proposed and demonstrated the brand-new see-through-window type photovoltaic generating unit by applying holographic technologies called “Holographic Window (Holo-Window)”. By skillfully using phenomena such as diffraction of light, reflection and refraction, the sunlight through windowpane is captured into the glass plate. By increasing diffraction angles (reflection from hologram in this case) more than critical angle of the glass inside, the sunlight leaded to the end edge of the glass. Small-ribbon-shape low-cost solar cells placed on windowsill. While the captured light travel to the glass edge, another captured light are also combining and then light intensity can be increasing dramatically. I will introduce the basic principle of Holo-Window, including the optical configuration and requirement of hologram characteristics, the hologram fabrication technology to achieve high diffraction angle for capturing the sunlight into the glass plate and I will discuss the performance of Holo-Window experimentally.

Vincenzo Spagnolo received his Phd in Physics, in 1994 from University of Bari. Since January 2004, he has been working at the Technical University of Bari, formerly as Assistant Professor of Physics and since 2015 as Associate Professor. He is the Director of the joint-research lab Polysense created by Thorlabs GmbH and Technical University of Bari. His current research interests include quantum cascade lasers, fiber optics and optoacoustic gas sensing. His research activity is documented by more than 160 Scopus publications and two filed patents. He has given more than 40 invited presentations.

Trace gas detection has a significant impact on a wide range of applications, such as environmental or industrial monitoring or medical breath analysis. Techniques based on optical absorption offer fast responses, minimal drifts and high gas specificity. Quartz enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) is one of the most sensitive optical techniques for trace gas measurements. QEPAS exploits a quart tuning fork (QTF) as a resonant optoacoustic transducer that converts the acoustic wave into the electrical signal via the piezoelectric effect. For more than a decade since its first demonstration in 2002, all the QEPAS systems employed standard 32 KHz QTFs, similar to the ones incorporated in clock watches and smartphones. Recently, new designs for the QTFs have been proposed and implemented in QEPAS sensors, opening the way to the use of QTF overtone vibrational modes and novel microresonator configurations providing excellent results in terms of sensitivity. The implementation of custom QTFs also allow extending the use of QEPAS in the THz spectral range and with laser sources having poor beam profile, like fiber-amplified lasers. Here it will presented a review of recent results obtained exploiting custom QTFs in QEPAS trace-gas sensors operating in the near-IR mid-IR and THz ranges. Finally, new QEPAS approaches exploiting simultaneous excitation of the two antinodes of the QTF first overtone mode or both fundamental and first overtone mode antinodes will be reported. In particular, the latter approach leads to the first simultaneous dual-gas detection with a QEPAS sensor.

Giorgio Pettinari has completed his PhD in Materials Science from Sapienza University of Rome in 2008. From 2009 to 2011, he has worked as Assistant Researcher in High Field Magnet Laboratory (HFML) of Nijmegen (The Netherlands), then (2011-2013) he moved to The University of Nottingham (UK) as Marie Curie Research Fellow. Since 2013, he is a Researcher at Istitute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies (IFN-CNR) of National Research Council of Italy. He has published more than 35 peer-reviewed original papers in accademic journals, 2 invited book chapters and given more than 15 oral contributions and seminars (5 invited) at international conferences and research institutes.

The fabrication of integrated quantum dot (QD)-optical microcavity systems is a requisite step for the realization of a wide range of nanophotonic experiments and applications that exploit the ability of QDs to emit non-classical light, e.g., single photons. Here, we present the possibility of creating site-controlled QDs in dilute-nitride semiconductors by spatially selective H incorporation and/or removal. In dilute nitrides (e.g., GaAsN), the formation of stable N-2H-H complexes following H incoporation removes the effects nitrogen has on the alloy properties. In particular, H binding to N atoms in GaAsN leads to an increase in the band gap energy of the GaAsN (~1.33 eV for [N]=1% at T=5 K) up to the value it has in GaAs (1.52 eV at 5 K). Therefore, by engineering the spatial H incorporation and/or removal in dilute nitides is possible to attain a spatially controlled modulation of the band gap energy in the growth plane and, therefore, to tailor the carrier-confining potential down to a nm scale, resulting in the fabrication of site-controlled QDs. Clear evidence of single-photon emission is presented for QDs made either by low-energy H irradiation of lithographically prepatterned samples and by spatial H removal in a fully hydrogenated sample by using the near-field hot spot generated by a SNOM tip to locally break the N-H bonds. Also, a lithographic approach to the deterministic QD-PhC nanocavity coupling is demonstrated, resulting in a significant enhancement (inhibition) of the spontaneous emission rate for low (high) cavity mode (CM)-QD energy detuning (Purcell effect).

Transition metal oxides (TMO) is an interesting group of solid materials with a wide variety of structural, optical, electrical and magnetic properties.The general formulae of transition metal oxides MnO2n±1 where M represents the transition metal. They have two dimensional vander-Waal’s bonded layered structures (Ex:V2O5,MoO3) or three dimensional frame work tunnel structures (Ex:WO3, LiCoO2) which lead the materials for their applications in the field of Electrochromic and Opto Electronic Devices. The combination of solid state materials science with thin film technology has significantly reduced the size of component and leads to micro electronic, micro ionic, electrochromic devices and display systems. Thin film deposition consists of three major phases. In the first phase, the material should be in the proper form to deposit. In the second stage, it was transported through the medium and in the third stage it should deposit on the substrate to form a continuous film. The films can be prepared by various physical vapour deposition techniques like thermal, electron beam, sputtering, so on and chemical vapour deposition techniques like solgel, spin coating, spray pyrolisis so on. Depending on the deposition parameters one can deposit amorphous, polycrystalline and nanocrystalline thin films for their effective utilisation in emerging technology. These films will be characterized for their composition, structure, morphology, vibrational and optical studies by using x-ray photo electron spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and UV-VIS spectroscopy.

Sebastian Roling has completed his PhD at the University of Münster, Germany. He works on extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and hard x-ray instrumentation for free-eletron lasers in the group of Helmut Zacharias at the University of Münster. He is author of more than 20 papers in reputed journals.

In the last decade the development of free-electron lasers (FELs) which operate in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and soft and hard x-ray spectral region have opened this photon energy regime to new and exciting experiments, like single pulse diffractive imaging, warm dense matter dynamics, surface reactions, the ionization and dissociation dynamics of isolated atoms and molecules and  any more. The duration of the FEL pulses is typically three orders of magnitude  horter than radiation from synchrotrons. These short pulses of typically a few tens of femtoseconds duration enable the investigation of dynamic processes now also in this spectral region with its chemically identifying characteristic inner shell excitations. Such studies require the presence of at least two temporally correlated light pulses. One can employ either one optical pulse from a conventional femtosecond laser and one FEL pulse or two FEL pulses. The first method has been hampered in the past by timing jitters, although with bunch arrival time measurements presently the jitter has been reduced to below 100 fs. Pump-probe experiments with x-ray pulses from the FELs alone ask for pulse splitting devices which in addition delay one pulse against the other. Such devices are usually based on an interferometric concept. The idea of splitting a light beam and recombining both parts again dates back to the very beginning of the 19th century. The concept of amplitude beam splitting was first realized in 1881 by A A Michelson in his famous interferometer. It has become a cornerstone for a large variety of fundamental experiments and instrumentation in the infrared, visible, UV and VUV spectral range. Ten years later another amplitude splitting interferometer was built independently by L Zehnder and L Mach. This instrument can also be used as wavefront splitting device. When a pulsed light source like, e.g., a synchrotron or a laser is employed, a different optical path length in the arms of the interferometer simultaneously implies a temporal delay between the pulses travelling via the different paths. It is exactly this fundamental principle which turns an interferometer into a pulse split-and-delay unit (SDU). General demands for the  implementation of a SDU at free-electron laser facilities to be considered are: the coverage of a spectral range as broad as practical; an easy change of the intensity ratio in both beams; a large temporal delay; the preservation of the combined intensity through the instrument and; a low risk of damage of the optics.

Masashi Yamaguchi is currently working as an Associate Professor at the Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He received his PhD from Hokkaido University and performed his Post-doctoral research at University of California Riverside and Massachusetts  nstitute of Technology. His expertise include research in ultrafast optical, THz and oustic spectroscopy; current interests include development of gas plasma THz radiation source and its applications to nonlinear THz spectroscopy and phonon transport in periodic nanostructures. He has over 70 publications.

THz spectroscopy has been playing a crucial role in the characterization of materials and chemical/biological sensing because of the abundance of   formation can be obtained through the excitations and resonant interactions in THz frequency range. Recent development of bright THz sources made it  ossible to explore the interaction of THz field and materials beyond the linear regime. So far, most of nonlinear THz spectroscopy has been demonstrated  sing solid state THz emitter in either low frequency or high frequency side of so called THz gap. This is mainly due to the bandwidth limitations of these  olid state THz sources. The laser-induced gas plasma source has intense and broad bandwidth covering entire THz gap region without hindered by the  honon absorption in THz emitter itself. In this presentation, frequency resolved THz z-scan spectroscopy and two-dimensional THz spectroscopy using laser induced gas plasma source are demonstrated and discussed. Electronic and phononic contributions were resolved in broadband THz transmission spectra. The field dependence of the spectra showed the apparent existence of THz nonlinear contributions, and these contributions are attributed to the combinational mode of zone boundary LA phonons. Two-dimensional THz spectroscopy in THz gap-region was demonstrated using much lower THz field (100 kV/cm) than previous reported (1MV) for higher frequency range (>20THz) in InSb. The utility of broadband nonlinear THz spectroscopy using laser-induced gas plasma provides a way to inspect and evaluate materials in more details.

Xiaoting Jia is an Assistant Professor in the ECE Department at Virginia Tech. Before joining Virginia Tech, she was a Post-doc Associate in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at MIT. She has received her PhD in  aterials Science and Engineering from MIT (2011), MS in Materials Science and  ngineering from SUNY-Stony Brook (2006) and BS in Materials Science from Fudan University in China (2004). She has authored and coauthored 26 papers published in premier journals including Science, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Communications, etc. Her papers have been cited for  ver 6000 times in total. Her work on nanomaterials was covered by several  edia outlets (Nanotechweb, Foresight, etc.). She was a recipient of Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Gold Medal (2010) and the  ranslational Fellow at the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics (2013).

Recent developments in nanomaterial synthesis and characterization have led to unprecedented material properties and device performance. On the other  and, many important applications see urgent needs for advanced material and device capabilities, and require large scale production of devices in order to make a real and significant impact. A big gap exists between the advanced  anotechnology and the macro scale applications. Here, I present a unique  aterial platform that aim to bridge the nano and macro worlds: multimaterial multifunctional fibers. I will introduce the scalable fabrication of multimaterial fibers via thermal drawing and the application of these flexible fiber devices in neural engineering, tissue engineering, drug delivery and optical sensing. In  articular, I will focus on the multimodality fibers for simultaneous optical,  lectrical and chemical interrogation of neural circuits in vivo and the  pplications of these fibers in a single-step optogenetic study. This technology will allow for more detailed manipulation and analysis of the neural network in deep brain regions of behaving animals than what current technologies achieved.

Takashige Omatsu has completed his PhD in the year 1992 from the University of Tokyo. He is working as professor in the Chiba University. He has published  ore than 130 papers in journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of Optics Express and Photonics Research. He is also currently working as a  irector at Large, the Optical Society (OSA). He was elected as Japan Society of Applied Physics and OSA Fellow.

Optical vortex carrys orbital angular momentum (OAM) and donut spatial profile owing to its helical wavefront and it has been widely investigated in a various applications, such as advanced optical manipulations, chiral  icrofabrications, super resolution microscopes and ultrahigh-speed optical telecommunications. The afore mentioned applications desire strongly  avelength and OAM- versatility in the optical vortex sources. In general, conventional phase elements for the optical vortex generation, designed for a specified lasing frequency, are ill-suited for tunable and high power laser sources. The direct generation of optical vortex modes from a laser cavity is alternative to produce high power optical vortex modes with high quality. A nonlinear frequency extension of optical vortex sources via second or third nonlinear process also provides us to achieve sufficient wavelength versatility in optical vortex sources. In this presentation, we detail the direct generation of optical vortex modes from solid-state laser and fiber laser systems. Also, we address optical parametric vortex lasers based on optical vortex pumped optical parametric laser oscillations in combination with difference frequency generation, which enables the development of ultrabroadband tunable optical vortex laser sources in the visible, near-infrared and mid-infrared regions. Further, we discuss the fractional vortex generation beam from an optical vortex parametric oscillator based on topological charge conservation.

Wei Deng received her PhD degree in Chemistry with Nanotechnology  ackground at Macquarie University, Australia, in 2012. She was rewarded with a highly competitive Fellowship (Discovery Early Career Research Award) from the Australian Research Council in 2012. She is now a Research Fellow at the  entre of Excellence in Nanoscale Biophotonics, Macquarie University. Her research fields are mainly focused on biomedical applications of liposomes and polymer nanoparticles, in particular, light (or X-ray)-controlled drug/gene delivery systems in cancer treatments.

PLGA nanocomposites were developed by incorporating a photosensitizer, verteporfin and gold nanoparticles into this polymeric matrix and utilised for enhanced photoynamic therapy on cancer cells. Both enhanced fluorescence and 1O2 generation from verteporfin were observed in this new formulation under both 425 nm LED and 405 nm laser illumination. A maximum  nhancement factor of 2.5 for fluorescence and 1.84 for 1O2 generation was obtained when the molar ratio of gold: VP was 5:1 and excited at 425 nm, compared with PLGA doped with verteporfin alone. The experiment results could be explained by the local electric field enhancement of gold anoparticles. Furthermore, improved therapeutic efficacy in human pancreatic cancer cells, PANC-1, was also demonstrated by using this new formulation following light exposure, indicating the utility of these nanocomposites in enhanced  hotodynamic therapy.

Feiliang Chen has completed his PhD from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is working as Assistant Researcher of Microsystem at Terahertz  esearch Center. His research focuses on the plasmonic photonic structures, single photon source and nanophotonic devices. He has published more than 13 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as peer reviewer for many journals. He is Member of the Optical Society of America (OSA).

Plasmonic metamaterials at optical frequencies can be used to manipulate the local photonic density of states and tailor the spectrum purposefully and  electively. Here nano-patterned hyperbolic metamaterials (HMM) for high- requency quantum dots single photon source (SPS) will be presented. Nanowire quantum dots fabricated by top-down method or selective area grown can obtain electrically driven site-controlled SPS, which is promising for integrated chip-scale SPS. However, considering the quantum confinement effect in quantum dots, the diameter of the nanowire is often less than 50 nm, which shows weak photon confinement and low spontaneous emission rate. HMM shows hyperbolic dispersion and corresponds to infinite local photonic density of states, which can be used for broadband Purcell effect radiative decay engineering. But due to the non-radiative behaviour of plasmonic modes in HMM, most of the emission photon will dissipate inside the metamaterial due to ohmic losses in planar HMM. Here we propose a nano-patterned hyperbolic metamaterials for nanowire quantum dots SPS. Combining the broadband enhancement of spontaneous emission from HMM and directional light extraction enhancement from nano-patterned scattering structures, broadband enhancements of both spontaneous emission rate and photon extraction efficiency were demonstrated over the whole visible range. Our research provides a novel idea for high-frequency and high-brightness nanowire quantum dots SPS, which has good prospect in many applications such as quantum information processing.

Tatjana Gric is currently working as an Associate Professor at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University and a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London. Prior to becoming an Associate Professor, she was a Leading Engineer of PCB Design at AKIS technologies. Her research interests include nano optics, metamaterials and plasmonics. She has authored and co-authored over 30 journal papers, including Optics Express and Journal of Optics. Currently, she helps in organizing the International Conference of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering.

The presence of electromagnetic waves on two-dimensional interfaces has been extensively studied over the last several decades. Surface plasmonic polariton (SPP), which normally exists at the interface between a noble metal and a  ielectric, is treated as the most widely investigated surface wave. SPPs have promoted new applications in many fields such as microelectronics, photovoltaics, near-field sensing, laser technology, photonics, meta-materials design, high order harmonics generation or charged particles acceleration. Recently, it has been shown that by nanostructuring the metal surface, it is possible to modify the dispersion of SPPs or excite the SPPs in a prescribed manner. Hyperbolic metamaterials, being special kind of anisotropic metamaterial with dielectric tensor elements having the mixed signs, have attracted growing attention due to their ability to support very large wave vectors. Their exotic features give rise to many intriguing applications, such as sub-wavelength imaging and hyper-lens that are infeasible with natural materials. Herein, we discovered the new kinds of surface wave on nanostructured metamaterial, crossing the light line with a substantial portion at lower frequencies lying above the free space light line. Interestingly, the propagation of such surface waves was found to be sensitive to the parameters of the materials employed in nanostructures. Furthermore, the Ferrel-Berreman modes were observed under the certain conditions, opening a gateway towards device fabrications.

Evgeny Savelyev graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University with a degree in Physics in 2012. He has completed his Post-graduate courses from Kotel’nikov Institute of Radio-Engineering and Electronics of RAS in 2016. The primary subject of his current research is clustering of different activators in silica-based glasses and the influence of the clusters on optical and spectral- uminescent properties of active lightguides. He has talked about the outcomes of his research at various internal and international conferences. He is the co-author of several articles recently published in the Optical Materials Express and Optical Materials.

Yb3+ ions in silica are powerhouses for single mode fiber lasers yielding kilowatts CW output powers at a wavelength near one micrometer. Bismuth in silica fibers features with a wide band luminescence (from 1 to 2 microns), which is topical for applications particularly in telecom systems. There is a guide to suppose that small-size, bismuth clusters are mainly responsible for the near-infrared luminescence and lasing in Bi-doped silica. A possibility to increase concentration of active species in the core glass of the lightguide is a very important condition for obtaining effective waveguide or fiber lasers and amplifiers. Nevertheless, such increasing may yield the formation of clusters. The dynamic pattern of clustering depends on mutual solubility of oxides, host glass composition, concentration of an activator and preparation technology of the solid solution. Clustering causes quenching of the metastable state excitation responsible for lasing and adds to the optical waveguide scattering loss. In this communication, we present the results of experimental study of optical loss and luminescence performances of Yb3+ ions and bismuth in optical waveguides purpose made from fused and unfused silica vie the SPCVD technology. Glasses having different contents of Yb, Al, P, Bi, B and Ge additives have been studied. As the result, a relationship between spectral-luminescent properties of the samples, structure and sizes of the clusters in them have been found.

S K Sekatskii has completed his PhD from Institute of Spectroscopy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Currently, he is working as a Senior Researcher of Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland (a permanent position). He has published around 150 papers in reputed journals.

We present a label-free biosensor based on registration of the photonic crystal (PC)-supported surface waves. s-polarized surface wave is used to detect  hanges in the thickness of an adsorbed layer, while p-polarized surface wave provides independent data on the liquid refraction index thus enabling the segregation of surface and volume effects. With this method we achieve mass sensitivity at the level of 0.3 pg/mm2 and refraction index (RI) sensitivity at the level of 10-7 RIU/Hz1/2. Other characteristic feature of this biosensor is large, of the order of 1 micron, surface wave penetration depth into an external media, which enables to study intermolecular interactions not only at (a few) monolayers level, but also for such large objects as bacteria, cell organells and even certain cells. We elaborated a chitosan-based protocol of surface modification of the sensor chip enabling to produce sufficiently dense and homogeneous (mono) layers of live E. coli bacteria and then these layers have been exploited as a generic “immobilized receptor layer” to study for the first time kinetics of adsorption of different ligands onto their (i.e. living bacteria’s) surface. Other applications of our approach are the use of specially prepared PC with thin (8 nm) metal layers to support ultralong plasmon propagation in Pd (for ultrasensitive hydrogen detection) and Co (for magnetoplasmonics) and in Au in blue and UV spectral ranges. (Note that in all these cases this is meaningless to speak about plasmons without PC: the plasmon propagation length is just of the order of wavelength).

Ngwe Zin has earned his PhD degree from the Australian National University (ANU). He was with the ANU until 2016 undertaking the Australian Government administered Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) fellowship award. Together with the ANU PV research team, he has developed 19%, 21.5%, 22.5% and 24% efficient InterdigitatedBack Contact (IBC) silicon solar cells. He then started working at the University of Central Florida recently. He also received multiple funding grants by leading or contributing to grant applications through collaboration with research institutes and industry partners. His research interests are the development of novel MEMS/NEMS structures, measurements, device fabrication, characterization, analysis, and modeling in high-efficiency and passivated contact silicon solar cells.

Interdigitated-back-contact (IBC) solar cells are the most efficient single-junction solar cell design. To date, the IBC cell with the best conversion efficiency of 26.6% has been demonstrated. IBC cell design offers a number of advantages over standard front contacted cells. It is largely in part that the IBC cell with interdigitated rear contacts offer benefits such as zero shading loss from metal fingers at the front surface, reduced grid resistance, improved front surface passivation and blue response; since the competing requirement of lateral current transport in the front emitter is removed, high rear internal reflectance owing to the presence of a thick dielectric and near full metal coverage. Utilisation of n-type material leads to reduced light-induced degradation due to the absence of the boron-oxygen complex and improved resilience to metallic impurities. In this contribution, a technique of removing shunts, associated in the development of IBC cells by laser-assisted means is presented. The laser used for the shunt removal is 532 nm diode pump solid state (DPSS) laser. The shunts are caused by residual boron (p+) diffusion within the phosphorus (n+) diffused region following the trench etch that separates the p and n regions. Photoluminescence (PL) imaging showed that apparent shunt regions were removed following this process. Analysis of IBC solar cells by dark IV characterization further confirmed that the shunt resistance was increased by about 30-fold (350 to 11500 Ω.cm2). The effective removal of shunts has increased the cell efficiency by 0.5% absolute. Carrier recombination induced by laser damage appears to be minimal since an open-circuit voltage of the IBC cells barely changes for pre- and post-laser ablation.