Photonic future bright thanks to IPOS

(PhysOrg.com) -- The University of Sydney's Institute of Photonics and Optical Science (IPOS) is set to present a year of research breakthroughs in photonics since its inception when it hosts its first Symposium tomorrow and Friday.

Professor Ben Eggleton, ARC Federation Fellow and Director of IPOS said it had been a busy year for IPOS researchers.

"In just over a year, IPOS has broken new ground in terms of what can be achieved with photonics and optics," he said.

"One of the most significant directions is the integration of biology with photonics and optics. The breakthrough of the 'optic chip on a strip' is truly life-saving technology."

Professor Eggleton said that by working across diverse areas such as physics, mathematics, chemistry, engineering and microscopy, ideas that were once thought to be in the realm of fiction, such as invisibility or remote surgery, were now becoming reality.

"At the same time as pioneering new ways to use photonics, IPOS has met one of its core objectives to create photonic processing solutions to move the Internet to operate at one terabit per second capacity," he said.

"Researchers are now researching clever ways to create a new class of photonic integrated circuits in the context of the CUDOS, ARC Centre of Excellence collaboration.

"With major new investment in research facilities, a world-class talent pool of researchers and PhD students and a vibrant new Masters degree in Photonics, IPOS aims to be the top Research and Teaching Photonics Institute in the Asia Pacific Region."

NSW Chief Scientist and Scientific Engineer, Professor Mary O'Kane will open the IPOS Symposium on Thursday 1 July. This will be followed by a BioPhotonics workshop on Friday 2 July.

As well as IPOS researchers, international and national speakers include Professor Demetri Psaltis (Optics Lab, School of Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland); Professor Fiorenzo Omenetto (Deptartment Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, USA); Professor. Min Gu (Faculty of Engineering & Industrial Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology); Dr. John Arkwright (Biomedical Fibre Sensors, Materials Science and Engineering, CSIRO); Professor Holger Schmidt (Applied Optics Group, Baskin School of Engineering, University of California USA) and Dr Rod Vance (Optiscan P/L)

Provided by University of Sydney