Plenary Speakers 

Dr. Jim KafkaUSA

*Vice President 2023, OPTICA

Chief Technology Officer, Spectra-Physics/MKS, USA

Title: Ultrafast Lasers for Multi-Photon Microscopy

Jim Kafka received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester in 1977 and 1983, respectively. For the last 40 years, he has been developing new products and is currently the Chief Technology Officer for Spectra-Physics, and a Fellow of our parent company MKS. In addition to authoring numerous journal articles, conference presentations and seminars, he co-authored a book chapter on Ultrafast Nonlinear Optics and holds 45 patents. Jim was the principal designer on three products, the Tsunami, the Opal, and the Millennia X, which have won technology achievement awards. Jim has served the optics community as the Ultrafast Phenomena topical editor for JOSA B and the co-chair for the CLEO and Advanced Solid-State Photonics conferences. He is a Fellow of Optica and has served as a Distinguished Traveling Lecturer for the Division of Laser Science of the APS. Jim is currently Vice President of Optica and is excited to progress through the presidential chain over the next few years.
The flourishing field of multi-photon microscopy is enabled by the combination of sophisiticated microscopes and tunable femtosecond laser sources. Together, these technologies have pushed the boundaries of multiple biological disciplines ranging from immunology to neuroscience. I will describe the specialized optical sources required for successful 2-photon and 3-photon microscopy as well as CARS.

Dr. Bernard C. KressUSA

*President 2023, SPIE (International Society for Optics and Photonics)

Director XR hardware, Google Inc., Mountain View, USA

Title: Optics and Photonics are key enabling technologies for all day use AI Smart Glasses

Bernard has been involved in Optics and Photonics for the past 25 years as an author, instructor, associate professor, engineer, and hardware development manager in academia, start-ups and multinational corporations, with a focus on micro-optics, diffractive and holographic optics. He successively worked on product developments in the fields of optical computing, optical telecom, optical data storage, optical anti-counterfeiting, industrial optical sensors and more recently in immersive displays for augmented and mixed reality systems.
Bernard published several books, holds close to 100 patents, and wrote a few hundred papers on these topics.
He is the 2023 President of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). He also set up and chairs various SPIE conferences including the SPIE AR/VR/MR co-located with Photonics West and the SPIE Digital Optical Technologies co-located with Laser Munich. He is also a short course instructor on micro-optics and ARVR displays and hosts the monthly online SPIE AR|VR|MR fireside chats. Bernard held engineering management positions at Google [X] Labs since 2010 (Google Glass) and Microsoft since 2015 (HoloLens). He is since 2021 the Director for XR engineering at Google in Mountain View, CA.
Addressing all three comfort pillars - wearable, visual and social - in all day use smart glasses is critical for wide consumer adoption. The display sub-system is at the core of this problem. Emissive display panels are preferred to traditional liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) or digital light processing (DLP) panels that require larger volumes and higher drive power. Although micro-OLED panels can be effectively matched to bulky birdbath combiners, micro-LED panels are best suited for thin waveguide combiners due to their higher brightness. Monolithic RGB microLED panels have been the industry’s holy grail for many years now but are still struggling to produce efficient pixels with pitches below 4 microns, with challenges ranging from using InGaN instead of more mature AlInGap, efficiency in red, reliability and thermal issues, and lack of 300mm wafer scale fab. Waveguide combiners are another challenge to solve to allow for high efficiency, wide FOV and larger eyebox accommodating a wide population. Diffractive, holographic and reflective waveguides are today investigated. Novel nanofabrication technologies are also developed to address the specifics for AR waveguide combiners.

Prof. Harry AtwaterUSA

Otis Booth Leadership Chair of Division of Engineering and Applied Science,

California Institute of Technology (CALTECH), USA

Title: Active Metasurfaces in Space and Time

Harry Atwater received his B. S., M. S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981, 1983 and 1987, respectively. He held the IBM Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University from 1987-88 and has been a member of the Caltech faculty since 1988. Now, he is the Otis Booth Leadership Chair, Division of Engineering and Applied Science, Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, and Director, Liquid Sunlight Alliance at the California Institute of Technology. Atwater’s scientific interests span light-matter interactions from quantum nanophotonics, two-dimensional materials and metasurfaces to solar photovoltaics and artificial photosynthesis. He is a Member of US National Academy of Engineering and is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Materials Research Society, SPIE and the National Academy of Inventors. Professor Atwater has been honored by awards including: Kavli Innovations in Chemistry Lecture Award, American Chemical Society (2018); APS David Adler Lectureship for Advances in Materials Physics (2016); Julius Springer Prize in Applied Physics (2014); Fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2013); ENI Prize for Renewable and Nonconventional Energy (2012); SPIE Green Photonics Award (2012); MRS Kavli Lecturer in Nanoscience (2010); and the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award (2010). He also received the Joop Los Fellowship from the Dutch Society for Fundamental Research on Matter (2005), the A.T.&T. Foundation Award (1990), the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award (1989) and the IBM Faculty Development Award in 1989-1990.
Electro-optically tunable active metasurfaces that enable dynamic modulation of reflection and transmission amplitude, phase, and polarization using resonantly excited materials and phenomena are powerful design elements for meta-imaging and computation. As flat, low-profile optical elements, active metasurfaces have potential serve as cascadable, programmable components in optical meta-imaging systems, such as lens-less cameras and single-photon imaging systems. In this talk, I will discuss metasurfaces with high quality factor, local, resonant elements capable of two-dimensional phase gradient generation, in both passive and active metasurface designs. I will also describe active metasurfaces with both spatial and temporal phase gradients, and an active metasurface as a lens-less imaging system, and compare the characteristics to conventional lens-coupled image sensors.

Prof. Xi-Cheng Zhang 張希成USA

M. Parker Givens Professor, The Institute of Optics, University of Rochester (UR), USA

Distinguished Scientist, Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester (UR), USA

Title: Nonlinear Optics in Air

Professor Xi-Cheng Zhang, the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics, was the Director of The Institute of Optics (2012–2017), a foremost institution in optics and optical physics research and education of the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York. Prior to joining the University of Rochester, he pioneered world-leading research in the field of ultrafast laser – based on terahertz technology and optical physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, New York (1992-2012). At RPI, he was the Eric Jonsson Professor of Science, Acting Head at the Department of Physics, Applied Physics & Astronomy, Professor of Electrical, Computer & System, and Founding Director of the Center for THz Research. He is also the co-founder of Zomega Terahertz Corp.Prof. Zhang received 29 US patents; authored and co-authored 24 books and book chapters, 330 refereed papers; delivered 500 colloquia, seminars, invited conference presentations, and 200 contributed conference talks.
As one of most common central symmetric materials, air does not have second-order optical nonlinearity. My talk highlights the recent experimental observation of strong second harmonic wave generation in airwith the use of ultrafast laser pulses.

Prof. Ann-Shyn Chiang 江安世Taiwan

Academician of Academia Sinica

Director, Brain Research Center

Tsing Hua Distinguished Chair Professor, College of Life Sciences and Medicine, National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Taiwan

International Faculty, Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind (KIBM) at the University of California, San Diego

Title: Innovative Microscopy for Mapping Memory Engrams in the Drosophila Brain

Received Ph.D. (1990) and trained as a postdoctoral fellow (1992) in Rutgers University, Ann-Shyn Chiang joined Department of Life Science, National Tsing Hua University as an associate professor (1992), promoted as professor (1997), took sabbatical to study Drosophila memory at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (2001) and became the adjunct International Faculty of Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind (KIBM) at the University of California, San Diego (2011). For his contribution to our understanding of memory formation using a connectomics approach, Chiang was elected as an Academician of Academia Sinica (2014) and The World Academy of Science Fellow (2016).

Chiang reconstructed a brain-wide wiring diagram in Drosophila (the New York Times reported this discovery as the first step toward mapping human brain) and published the first Cell (2007) paper from Taiwanese scientists. Guiding by this connectomics map, he and his colleagues discovered that long-term memory formation requires new protein synthesis only in few brain neurons and published the first full article in Science (2012) from Taiwanese scientists. He received many awards, including: Outstanding Research Award, National Science Council (2004, 2009, 2012), Outstanding Scholar Award, Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship (2007), Academic Award of Ministry of Education (2007), Outstanding Contributions in Science and Technology of Executive Yuan (2008), TWAS Prize in Biology (2012), and National Chair Award of Ministry of Education (2015, 2020). Chiang is currently the Director of Brain Research Center, and the Distinguished Chair Professor of National Tsing Hua University.

Unveiling the neural underpinnings of memory formation and storage remains a central pursuit in neuroscience. In this presentation, we present our latest research on mapping memory engrams in the Drosophila brain, providing fresh insights into memory's fundamental mechanisms. Through the utilization of state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques and advanced genetic tools, our study elucidates the spatiotemporal dynamics of memory engrams within the Drosophila connectome. We further clarify the neural circuits and molecular processes governing memory consolidation and retrieval, offering a comprehensive perspective on memory in this model organism. Our findings not only enhance our understanding of memory in Drosophila but also carry broader implications for memory engrams in complex organisms. This presentation highlights the advancement of cutting-edge imaging technologies, enabling the three-dimensional reconstruction of neural networks within memory engrams that impact decision-making.
Online Paper Submission Registration Conference Program

 Important Dates

Paper Submission Opening：
2023/05/01

Paper Submission Deadline：
2023/07/31 
2023/08/14
2023/08/28
2023/09/06 (Final Extension!)

Poster-Only Postdeadline Submission：
2023/09/25-2023/10/03

Registration Opening：
2023/08/01

Acceptance Notification：
2023/10/09

Early Bird Registration Deadline：
2023/11/06

Online Registration Deadline：
2023/11/16

Conference Days：
2023/12/01~12/03

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