Report on EPS-QEOD Europhoton Conference 2018
The 8th EPS-QEOD Europhoton Conference was held in the city of Barcelona, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, from 2-7 September 2018.
This biennial conference, which is focused on photonics, has been held in different locations across Europe since its inaugural conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2004.
Europhoton brings together the latest advances in solid-state, fibre, and waveguide coherent light sources and their applications, and is now firmly established as a premier international meeting at the cutting-edge of laser science and technology.
The 2018 edition of the conference in Barcelona was attended by more than 235 delegates from 30 countries around the world, and attracted industrial participation from several companies from Europe, North America, and Asia.
The technical program included more than 95 oral presentations, including 12 invited and 2 keynote talks from leading international researchers in the field, as well as 122 poster contributions. As part of the technical program, the participants also had the opportunity to attend summer school lectures to become familiar or update their knowledge of hot topics in photonics such as microcavities and microcombs, optical imaging and microscopy, integrated power microlasers, and the latest advances in fiber laser technology, presented by leading international experts in the field.
The conference also provided the platform for the presentation of the 2018 prize for research in laser science and applications. This prestigious biennial prize was awarded to Prof. R. J. Dwayne Miller of the Max-Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg, Germany, for “achieving the fundamental limit to minimally invasive surgery with complete biodiagnostics for surgical guidance”.
In addition to the technical program, the conference also featured a social excursion event showcasing the cultural and historical heritage of Catalunya in the art of Cava making, with generous support from ICFO-The Insitute of Photonic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain. The conference was another important step in strengthening the field of photonics, and provided further impetus for the continuation of this successful conference series, with the 9th EPS-QEOD Europhoton Conference to be held in Prague, Czech Republic, in September 2020.
The 8th EPS-QEOD Europhoton Conference was sponsored by the EPS-QEOD and ICFO.
