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The European Optical Society Annual Meeting, EOSAM, is a major international scientific conference covering all aspects of optics and photonics. It is attended by top researchers, key leaders, students, and industry experts. Each year EOSAM moves into different optics hubs better serving the local communities and at each time creating a unique EOSAM experience for the attendees. EOSAM was previously organized in France, Scotland, Germany, Netherlands, and was also planned for Portugal but was held online due to the pandemic.

This year, EOSAM was held on September 13-17 in Rome Italy, bringing back the highly awaited international in-person EOS events.  EOS organized the conference in close co-operation with the Societa Italiana di Ottica e Fotonica, SIOF, the Italian optical society Branch member of EOS, and the Universita di Roma La Sapienza. For the first time, EOSAM was held in a hybrid format, successfully mixing online attendees with on-site participants. With over 350 onsite attendees and 180 online attendees, from 33 countries worldwide, this hybrid format was a full success and worth to be repeated in the future!

Onsite participants benefited from an exceptional venue. The meeting was held in the premises of Universita di Roma La Sapienza, in the center of Roma. The conference rooms surrounded the old cloister open onto an inner courtyard. The cloister arcades welcomed an industrial exhibit of 14 booths, the poster sessions, the welcome reception, the numerous coffee breaks, and the everyday lunches. All these activities reinforced the exchanges between the attendants. EOS indeed pays a special attention to the interaction between participants by promoting networking opportunities. One of the nicest was the memorable gala dinner served in the century-old rooms of the Centro Palazzo Rospigliosi conference center.

The quality of the conference was served by the quality of the scientific presentations, 445 in total. These presentations were shared among topical meetings, TOM, and sessions covering most fields of optics and photonics:

TOM 1 - Silicon Photonics and Guided-Wave Optics 
TOM 2 - Computational, Adaptive and Freeform Optics 
TOM 3 - Optical System Design, Tolerancing and Manufacturing 
TOM 4 - Bio-Medical Optics 
TOM 5 - Resonant Nanophotonics 
TOM 6 - Optical Materials: crystals, thin films, organic molecules and polymers, syntheses, characterization and devices 
TOM 7 - Thermal radiation and energy management 
TOM 8 - Nonlinear and Quantum Optics 
TOM 9 - Optics at Nanoscale (ONS) 
TOM 10 - Optical Microsystems (OMS) 
TOM 11 - Waves in Complex Photonic Media 
TOM 12 - Optofluidics 
TOM 13 - Ultrafast Optical Technologies and Applications 
TOM 14 - Advances and Applications of Optics and Photonics 
EU Project Session 
Early Stage Researcher Session organised by SIOF 
Grand Challenges of Photonics Session 

Recognitions of scientific works at all stages of scientific career are always stirring moments. EOSAM is no exception:

The opening ceremony started with the ICO award ceremony. The Prize winner, M. Guizar-Sicairos, gave an exciting plenary talk entitled “Harnessing coherence and computational imaging for nanoscale structure characterization using X-rays”.

Several student prizes, corresponding to different Topical Meetings, we also awarded during the closing ceremony.

• The best student poster presentation (sponsored by Zeiss): Tunable and polarization-insensitive metamaterial absorber in the visible spectrum by Benjamin Asamoah (University of Eastern Finland)
• The best student presentation (sponsored by EOS): 100-W, 100-MW, 50-fs thin-disk laser oscillator based on Yb:YAG by Jakub Drs (University of Neuchâtel)
• The best student presentation (sponsored by Evatec): Spontaneous photon pair generation in nonlinear metasurfaces by Tomás Santiago-Cruz (Max Plank Institute for the Science of Light)
• The best student presentation (sponsored by Buhler): In-vivo fabrication of bioelectronic interface via polymerization of conjugated oligomers by Giuseppina Tommasini (Instituto di Scienze Applicate e Sistemi Intelligenti & Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche)
• The best student presentation (sponsored by RhySearch): Ultra-broadband stochastic resonance of light enabled by memory effects in the nonlinear response by Kevin Peters (AMOLF)
• The best student presentation (sponsored by Nikon): Tuning photothermal dynamics in gold nanoparticle-loaded agarose gel for plasmon-enhanced drug release by Andrea Schirato (Politecnico di Milano & Italian Institute of Technology)
• The best student presentation (sponsored by ICO): Sub-light-cycle control of relativistic plasma-mirrors by Marie Ouillé (Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée)
   

EOSAM 2021 was a memorable event made possible by the involvement of a whole community. EOS would like to give special thanks to the local EOSAM chairs, Concita Sibilia and Alessandro Belardini, the Topical meeting chairs, and all the attendees and speakers who contributed to such a friendly and warm atmosphere. EOS also deeply thanks the EOSAM 2021 sponsors who greatly contributed to the quality of the meeting: Optoprim, Fastlite, NKT Photonics, Toptica Photonics, Optoman, Fluence Technology, Activefiber Systems, American Elements, A.P.E, GLOPhotonics, Bühler, ICO, Nikon, RhySearch, SIOF, Trumpf, UniNe, Zurich Instrument, FemtoEasy, Thorlabs, WZWOpticag, Layertec, Evatec, Zeiss.

EOSAM is the European yearly event that brings together the photonics community. Don’t miss the next EOSAM in September 2022 to find out about the latest advances in optics and photonics in a convivial atmosphere.

As autumn is here, it is nice to reminisce the warm atmosphere in Rome at EOSAM, what a week it was! - check the photos

EOSAM 2021 event website

Check out the latest EOS Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/159ab545d8f7/april21

Apply for the Early Career Women in Photonics Award, Nominate an EOS Fellow, Submit your research to the major international conference EOSAM, and more..

by Mousumi Chakraborty, PhD in Photonics

In the present, women in photonics is one of the most talked-about topics in the virtual and real world. According to the studies, a large number of women are enrolling in a university in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects and doing good in their field. Sometimes they are doing better than male colleague/students. Nevertheless, unfortunately, the same number of women are not participating in the field of STEM occupations. Still, STEM is considered a male-dominated field, though many women have already proven their excellence and competence in these fields.

Globally, women are underrepresented in many fields, especially in the research, photonics, and optics field; the number is still below standard. According to a recent UNESCO report, only 30% of the world’s researchers are women, though this percentage varies from region to region.

The European Optical Society (EOS) welcomes all members to nominate a fellow for the Fellowship 2021. 

The category of EOS Fellow may be conferred upon distinguished members of the society. It is the highest category of membership of the EOS. Any member of the EOS may nominate a Fellow. Fellow selection is now made annually. Have a look at all the EOS Fellows celebrated along the years here.

Nominations for 2021 fellowships is open, nominate by June 1, 2021: NOMINATE A FELLOW

Fellows will be honored with a diploma at the Fellow Ceremony during the next international conference EOSAM.

More information about Fellow Selection

Submission is now open for the international conference EOSAM 2021. All topics on optics and photonics are included. The record-breaking number of topical meetings ensure that your research will fit within the scope of the conference. 

In case the event cannot be held onsite, the organizers ensure your presentation will be presented online in front of the right audience. The conference dates 13 - 17 September 2021 remain in either case.  Submission is open until 20 May: https://www.conftool.com/eosam2021 

Submissions are welcomed for oral and poster presentations for all Topical meetings (TOMs). Have a look at the list of TOMS: https://www.europeanoptics.org/pages/events/eosam2021/toms/ 

EOSAM 2021 website:
https://www.europeanoptics.org/events/eos/eosam2021.html

The EOS Early Career Women in Photonics award is presented to honor a young female scientist who has made outstanding contributions to photonics.

The award consists of a diploma and an honorarium of (€2500). The award will be presented in 2021 at an award ceremony at the CLEO/Europe-EQEC 2021, held within the World of Photonics Congress during 20 - 24 June 2021.
 

Apply by 18 May 2021

More information about the award and application guidelines: https://www.europeanoptics.org/pages/distinctions/awards/early-career-women.html 

EOSAM 2020 held as online conference for the first time ever with great success!

The international flagship event of the European Optical Society (EOS), the EOSAM conference, was held in online form during 7-11 September 2020. The initial plan was to celebrate the international conference and industrial exhibition, EOSAM, under the warm sun of Porto, Portugal in 7-11 September 2020, organized together with the Portuguese Society for Optics and photonics, SPOF. However, due to the circumstances with the covid pandemic, we wanted to ensure the safety of our attendees and their families, and made the difficult decision to move the onsite event into online form, for the first time ever in the history of EOSAM.

During the conference week, 7-11 September, EOS offered live and on-demand presentations free of charge for attendees, with a chance to register and view the presentations also after the conference week, free of charge (sessions were open until 25 September).  

The conference week included the School of Physics on Optical Metrology, four live plenary talks and over 120 invited and contributed presentations on all the 12 topical meetings, covering all topics of optics and photonics.