| The 4th International Conference on Advanced Optoelectronics and Lasers (CAOL 2008) was held September 29 – October 4, 2008 in Alushta, on the south coast of Crimea, Ukraine. Alushta is one of the best vacation places in the South Crimea, with a population of about 100,000 and a unique, salubrious climate. Yalta, another nearby famous Crimean city has numerous hotels and cultural attractions and is well known due to the historic Crimean (or Argonoaut) Conference held in Livadia Palace there towards the end of World War II. Among other historical places of Crimea is Bakhchisaray, the former Tatar capital where the famous Palace of the Crimean Khan is located.
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| Opening session (Speaker: I. Sukhoivanov; Conference co-chairs: M. Pereira, V.A. Svich, V.A. Maslov, I.V. Dzedolik) |
The 2008 CAOL meeting was organized by the Ukraine LEOS chapter and the Student Chapter at Kharkov National University of Radio Electronics, in cooperation with three Ukrainian Universities: Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, and Taurida National V. I. Vernadsky University. Other organizing chapters include the University of Guanajuato, Mexico, (Campus Irapuato-Salamanca), the joint IEEE AP/MTT/ED/AES/GRS/NPS/EMB East Ukraine Chapter, and IRE OSA Student Chapter. The large number of organizers has enabled a new series of conferences started in 2002 by the Ukraine LEOS Chapter at the LEOS Chapter Meeting in Glasgow. This conference series has resulted in dissemination of information among researchers in various regions of the world. CAOL has become a recognizable title and the conference has attracted contributors from many countries in Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia.
After the 3rd CAOL in 2006 in Guanajuato, Mexico, cooperation between the Ukraine LEOS Chapter, the University of Guanajuato, and LEOS Vice-President Dr. Selim Ünlü, resulted in formation of a new LEOS Chapter in Guanajuato. This new and active chapter organized the “Photonics in Mexico” symposium held in Acapulco on July 19-23, 2008 as part of LEOS Summer Topicals 2008. The conference series was continued in Ukraine in 2008. Successful organization of 2008 meetings would not be possible without permanent interest and support of past LEOS Vice-President Dr. Katya Golovchenko and Summer Topicals Chair, LEOS Vice-President Dr. Dominik Rabus. Dr. Golovchenko played a key role in organizing Photonics in Mexico symposium and has lent invaluable support to the organization of CAOL 2008.
In spite of its small number of members, the LEOS Ukraine Chapter is growing and constantly generating new ideas directed at encouraging support of Ukraine scientists. Particular attention is given to young scientists and students. This activity was recognized by made by LEOS through several awards, including Most Innovative Chapter (2000, 2007), Chapter with Largest Membership Increase (2001, 2002), and Most Improved Chapter (2003).
We organized 3 meetings in Alushta: 4th Conference “Advanced Optoelectronics and Lasers” (CAOL 2008); 9th Conference “Laser and Fiber Optical Networks Modeling” (LFNM 2008); and Workshop “Terahertz Radiation: Basic research and application (TERA 2008)”. This set of co-located meetings illustrates the effectiveness of the LEOS activities in Ukraine and Mexico. Overall, the three meetings attracted over 200 participants with 230 papers from 28 countries on five continents. LFNM was the first event of the LEOS Ukraine Chapter formed in 1998, and today that conference is the annual meeting in Ukraine in the area of laser physics and applied optics. Both LFNM and TERA supplement and extend the circle of the participants from the point of view of the application of theoretical methods and computer modeling of optoelectronic and laser systems as well as neighboring areas like terahertz technology. The TERA workshop is unique, because it is devoted to the new and topical area of THz optics and optoelectronics, where the combination of fundamental physics and its practical application is used to address the important problems of anti-terrorism and drug trafficking.
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| Discussion during the poster session between participants from Russia, Ukraine, Mexico |
Best young speakers. 1st line: Yu. Pilgun (T.Shevchenko National Univ., Kiev); M. Klimenko (Univ. of Radioelectronics, Kharkov); E. Samsonova (MGU, Moscow), G. Sharma (INRS- EMT, Canada) 2nd line: T. Isaac (University of Exeter, UK); G. Tkachenko (Univ. of Radioelectronics, Kharkov) |
Overall, the topics of the conferences embraced physical, mathematical, and technical problems of modern laser physics, photonics, optics and terahertz photonics. Papers on semiconductor nanoengineering, novel lasers, including quantum cascade and quantum dot lasers, photonic crystals and devices, nonlinear optics, optical measurements, wave propagation and control in lasers and optical systems were presented. Other topics included laser radiation control, photonic crystals and devices, ultrabroadband systems, and data transmission devices, including those for application in optical computers. The conference proceedings included two volumes, one each for CAOL (464 pages) and LFNM (160 pages), and separate CD-ROM proceedings for TERA workshop. All of conference proceedings were published before the meetings.
During the week, participants had an opportunity to exchange ideas during the sessions and in informal discussions in the garden of the conference hotel and at the banquet. Interaction between well-known scientists and students (who constituted one-third of the participants) were especially enjoyed. I would like to make special mention of the work of LEOS Student Chapter of the Kharkov National University of Radio Electronics, whose members were part of the Organizing Committee and not only worked 12 hours a day but also made a number of interesting presentations, the high level of which was noted by many participants of the conference.
Undoubtedly, the most important event of the conference series was participation of LEOS Distinguished Lecturer Prof. John O’Brien who gave a seminar on “Photonic Crystal Devices”. Other invited speakers included internationally known scientists T. M. Benson, University of Nottingham, UK, J. Abbate, Univ. of Naples Federico II Italy, and Prof. Bo Yong, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. Well-known scientific schools represented included The University of Leeds, University of Bristol, University of Salford, Sheffield Hallam University (U.K.); The Institute of Photonic Sciences and ICREA (Spain); , Nonlinear Physics Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia; R&D Institute of Physics NAS of Ukraine, Institute of Semiconductors Physics NAS of Ukraine (Ukraine); University of Guanajuato (Mexico), M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University; Institute of Applied Physics (Russia), National Institute of Materials Science, NIMS, Tsukuba, Institute of Science and Technology, AIST (Japan), and many others. Extremely interesting was the talk “Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers and Video-Rate THz Imaging” by MIT Prof. Qing Hu. The interest to that report and following discussions has allowed us to plan of the future development of TERA workshop and possible collaborations as well.
We were happy to reach agreement on holding the next terahertz meeting in Turkey after an invitation by Dr. Tugrul Hakioglu (Bilkent Universitesi, Ankara, Turkey) who will represent local organizers. Dr. Tugrul Hakioglu, Prof. Mauro Pereira, and I are actively preparing that workshop whose topics of interest will be enlarged to cover mid-IR research http://smmo.org/TERA-MIR2009/. The number of invited speakers already today allows us to hope that TERA-MID Workshop will be one of the primary events in 2009.
We can say with great satisfaction that CAOL and LFNM are first-rate regular English-speaking conferences in the area of optoelectronics and laser engineering that have obtained international recognition. According to participants, CAOL is currently the only big conference on laser physics and optics in Ukraine and one of only two big conferences on optics and laser physics in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
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| Organizing Committee after conference closing |
As an organizer, I can say that the future optimal scheme for this conference series is alternation of separate conferences like LFNM, TERA, and a wide-topic conference CAOL. For this reason, 2009 will be devoted to preparation of TERA-MID Workshop in Turkey, and the 10th LFNM conference is planned for Ukraine in 2010. You are welcome to our meetings! All information about past and future conferences of this series can be found on these and other web sites:
http://caol.kture.kharkov.ua/
http://caol.kture.kharkov.ua/eng/lfnm/lfnm_eng.html
http://tera2008.kture.kharkov.ua/
http://smmo.org/TERA-MIR2009/.
Igor A. Sukhoivanov
Chair of the CAOL/LFNM/TERA
joint Organizing Committees
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