Plenary Talks

Prof. Leonid Kazovsky - Green In-Building Networks: the Future Convergence of Green, Optical and Wireless Technologies

Abstract: The global network energy consumption is increasing at an alarming rate due to proliferation of the Internet and its increasingly bandwidth-intensive applications. In this talk, the speaker presents energy efficient in-building and access network technologies that feature green optical/wireless integration, energy efficient protocols, and green customer premises equipment (CPE) design. The talk investigates the energy saving potential of radio-over-fiber and analyzes the energy consumption of the proposed architectures and technologies. The use of proposed technologies is shown to lead to up to 50% energy savings.

Bio: Prof. Leonid Kazovsky has been with Stanford University since 1990. Prior to joining Stanford, he was with Bellcore, NJ, where he developed the theory of coherent optical systems that is generally recognized as a foundation for all modern coherent systems widely deployed today. At Stanford, Prof. Kazovsky's research group, Photonics and Networking Research Laboratory, is working on green networking technologies, optical/wireless networks, in-building and access networks, and next-generation Internet architectures. Prof. Kazovsky has educated some 30 Ph.D.'s at Stanford and published three books, several book chapters, and some 500 journal and conference papers. His work has been cited more than 7500 times in the scientific literature, as per Google Scholar. Prof. Kazovsky is a Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America.

Affiliation: Head of the Photonics and Networking Research Laboratory (PNRL), Stanford University, USA

Dr. Milton Chang - Enriching Our Career

Abstract: The speaker will make the point that business and management knowhow could enrich one's technical career whether you are a professor or a working engineer. He will also describe a way to start photonics companies without the high risk of failure.
Everyone can benefit from knowing the essence of business and management. You'll have a context to make better decisions on the job and be able to interact effectively with the rest of the organization. It also gives you the options to start your own company, and to assume management responsibilities when technical obsolescence sets in.
The speaker will also describe a way to naturally avoid the pitfalls that cause so many startup companies to fail. His methodology is based on his experience having successfully incubated more than a dozen companies, and it address a major issue facing photonics startups, which is the long gestation between technology innovation and commercialization.

Bio: Milton Chang is managing director of Incubic Management LLC and is the author of Toward Entrepreneurship. He was president of Newport and New Focus, which he took public. He is currently director of Aurrion and MBio Diagnostics, spends time advising companies and mentoring entrepreneurs, and writes a monthly business column for the Laser Focus World. Dr. Chang is currently a Trustee of the California Institute of Technology, a member of the Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies of the US Security Exchange Commission, and a member of Committee of 100.

Affiliation: Incubic Management LLC

Prof. Crina Cojocaru - Managing light in nonlinear disordered media

Abstract: In this talk the speaker will discuss different aspects of harmonic generation in nonlinear quadratic photonic structures with disordered domain distribution. Some naturally grown ferroelectric crystals often exhibit an irregular multi-domain structure. These materials may be seen as two-dimensional photonic nonlinear structures with an infinite number of reciprocal vectors corresponding to various local nonlinear grating, enabling phase matching of various parametric processes over an ultra-broad spectral range and in different spatial directions. We show that the transverse second harmonic generation provides a simple and robust method for characterizing femtosecond optical pulses, which enables not only the estimation of the temporal width of the pulses but also the observation of their temporal evolution during propagation. The specific features of disordered domain structure greatly affect the emission pattern of the generated harmonics. This phenomenon can be used to characterize the degree of disorder in nonlinear photonic structures.

Bio: Crina Cojocaru received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics from the University of Iasi, Romania in 1996. She obtained the PhD degree in Physics, in the field of nonlinear optics, from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain in 2002. Between 2002 and 2004 she joined the "Laboratoire de Photonique et de Nanostructures" (CNRS) in Paris as Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow. Since 2004 she is with the "Nonlinear dynamics, nonlinear optics and lasers" group at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain, first as Researcher and later as Associate Professor. Her research interest includes different aspects of linear and nonlinear light propagation in homogeneous and modulated materials (photonic crystals) and harmonic generation. Dr. Cojocaru is a member of the Catalan and Spanish Societies of Physics, and of the European Optical Society.

Affiliation: Department of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Technical University of Catalonia (UPC)