OSA Podblog

At the OSA 2009 Winter Leadership meeting held in Washington, DC in February, Professor Steven Vogt from the University of California presented a unique plenary talk describing the characteristics of some of the 250 planets that have already been discovered using ground-based telescopes and precise optical metrology. His presentation included images created by an artist hired to capture the atmosphere of those planets based on the scientific information collected.  They use a marriage of scientific data and visualization to capture all of the brain, both logical and creative.

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PDF Presentation

 

OSA Honorary Member Nicolaas Bloembergen shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics for his significant contributions to laser spectroscopy and nonlinear optics. OPN writer Patricia Daukantas conducted exclusive interviews with Bloembergen and with OSA Fellow Robert Boyd, who co-organized a symposium celebrating 50 years of laser theory at Frontiers in Optics (FiO), the Society's 92^nd Annual Meeting in Rochester, N.Y., U.S.A.

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OPN"s home page:
http://www.osa-opn.org

Nicolaas Bloembergen:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1981/index.html
http://www.optics.arizona.edu/faculty/Resumes/Bloembergen.htm

Robert Boyd:
http://www.optics.rochester.edu/workgroups/boyd/nonlinear.html
http://www.optics.rochester.edu/workgroups/boyd/nonlinear.html

At the Frontiers in Optics conference in October 2008, OSA marked the 50^th anniversary of the classic paper on laser theory by Arthur L. Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes. OPN writer Patricia Daukantas conducted an exclusive interview with the 93-year-old Townes, a Nobel laureate and OSA Honorary Member, about his groundbreaking research.

OPN's home page:
http://www.osa-opn.org

The Schawlow-Townes paper ("Infrared and Optical Masers,” Phys. Rev. 112, 1940 [1958]):
http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v112/i6/p1940_1

This podcast features a traveling lecturer’s presentation to the Wroclaw, Poland Chapter in May 2008.  The speaker, Dr. Hernando Garcia, was part of the International Student Chapters Meeting hosted by OSA’s Wroclaw Chapter.

Dr. Hernando Garcia speaks regularly on the topics of ultrafast optics and optoelectronics. If you would like more information about OSA’s Student Chapters, Traveling Lecturer Program, or other OSA multimedia talks and sessions; please email KiKi L’Italien at chaptersandsections@osa.org and thanks for supporting our podcast!

Stephen Jacobs
Affiliation: University of Rochester, USA
Title: Liquid Crystal Mood Patches: Presentation & Hands-On Experience
Date: 8/6/2008
Time: 1:20 - 2:00 pm
Location: Boulder, CO

http://i2cam.org/conference/lc2cam08/presentations/lc2cam08_jacobs/index.html

On May 9, 2008, Dr. Eric Van Stryland spoke to the OSA University of California, Irvine Student Chapter about non-linear optics as part of the OSA Traveling Lecturer Program. 

For the uninitiated, Wikipedia says nonlinear optics (NLO) is the branch of optics that describes the behavior of light in nonlinear media, that is, media in which the dielectric polarization P responds nonlinearly to the electric field E of the light. This nonlinearity is typically only observed at very high light intensities such as those provided by pulsed lasers.

We hope you enjoy Eric’s presentation.  If you would like more information about OSA’s Student Chapters, Traveling Lecturer Program, or nonlinear optics talks and sessions; please email KiKi L’Italien at chaptersandsections@osa.org.

Do you know how to use your membership in a professional society to its full benefit?  Do you sometimes wonder what direction your life will take once you have decided to go into industry or academia?  When you are looking at the long lists of publications that other people have accumulated, do you ponder your ability to achieve a publications list as prolific?  In May 2008 at the CLEO/QELS conference in San Jose, California, four well-known OSA members gathered together to talk about these topics and to share tips from their own lives to benefit the young professionals who are now where they once were. 

Career Podcast Part 1
Career Podcast Part 2

 

Optical technologies have made major contributions to disease identification, detection, diagnosis and treatment.  Scientists and engineers in optics and photonics have been important contributors to these developments and are looking to contribute to future advances in the next generation of bio-optical technology.  Dr. Jaffe’s talk provides perspective on the places in which advanced imagery and collaborative data sharing technology promise to provide superior results, where advances are needed to make more powerful tools, and where technology is lacking.

View slides from this presentation (PDF)

The Minorities & Women in OSA (MWOSA) Breakfast at the 2007 Frontiers in Optics (FiO) conference in San Jose, CA featured Kate Pickle, STEM Project Manager for the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA).  Listen to this inspiring talk emphasizing the role optics professionals can have in encouraging girls to excel in science and math studies.  For more information about MWOSA, please contact KiKi L'Italien at klital@osa.org.