Summer School
The Europhoton Conference includes a Summer School on " Frontiers of Solid-State Light Sources ".

The Summer School will be held from Sunday, August 31th (afternoon) - Monday, September 1st (evening), 2008.

PhD Students and Postdocs who have paid the conference fee are especially invited to attend the Summer School. They will receive free entrance to the School.
The same rule will be applied for the full paying conference participants.

The lecture program will be presented by lecturers who are internationally renowned for their research subjects.
The list of lecturers that have accepted to participate to the Summer School is the following :

Pr A. E. Siegman, Stanford University, USA (Curriculum Vitae)
"Fresnel Reflection, Lenserf Reflection, and the Physics of Very Large Mode Area Fiber Lasers"

Abstract:
This lecture might be described as an examination of "Classical Optics With Gain". Many familiar optical phenomena, including Fresnel reflection and optical waveguiding, normally occur in lossless dielectric media and are only slightly modified by the addition of optical absorption or loss. Today, however, we can also create negative-valued optical absorption in the form of laser gain, and it turns out that adding even small amounts of optical gain to these classic optical phenomena can lead to puzzling and even controversial behavior. This lecture will review some of the interesting and even useful phenomena that can result.

Pr M. Dawson, Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde, Scotland (Curriculum Vitae)
"Semiconductor disk lasers: a solid-state dye laser ?"

Abstract:
‘THE SEMICONDUCTOR DISK LASER: A SOLID-STATE DYE LASER?’
Semiconductor disk lasers, also known as vertical external cavity surface-emitting lasers, have emerged in the past few years as an important new category of lasers. These devices are a hybrid technology, optically pumped in cavity geometries familiar in solid-state lasers but with benefits accruing from the use of a semiconductor gain medium. They are power scalable to output levels of many Watts, can be customised for wavelengths from the UV to the mid-infrared, and are attractive as tunable single-frequency and mode-locked sources. We will review the state-of-the-art in this burgeoning field and cover such topics as thermal management, microlasers, visible-emitting devices and infrared systems.

Pr M. Ebrahim-Zadeh, ICFO, Barcelona, Spain (Curriculum Vitae)
"Optical Parametric Device Technology and Applications"

Abstract:
This lecture will provide an overview of optical parametric device technology, from basic operation principles to the latest advances in the field. The talk will include a brief description of the fundamental concepts in optical parametric generation and amplification, a discussion of critical design issues, nonlinear materials, and device architectures, followed by a review of the current status of technology and new applications. The lecture will cover devices operating from the continuous-wave to the ultrafast femtosecond time-scales and will benefit researchers with little or no background in parametric devices, as well as those more familiar with the field, who wish to enhance their understanding and update their knowledge of the emerging developments in this technology.


Dr B. Willke, Institute for Gravitational Physics, Hannover, Germany (Curriculum Vitae)
"Stabilized high-power single frequency solid-state lasers for gravitational waves measurement"

Abstract
One of the most demanding applications of high-power solid state laser is their use in interferometric gravitational wave detectors. Single-mode single-frequency lasers have to provide a linear polarized output beam with a power level of 200W. Low free-running fluctuations in power, frequency and spatial profile of the laser beam are required.
This lecture will first discuss the main challenges in the high power generation. We will then concentrate on the design choices made for a 200W laser to be used in the Advanced LIGO project. Finally we will discuss techniques to stabilize such lasers, their performance and their limits.


Dr A. Brignon, Thales Research and Technology, Palaiseau, France (Curriculum Vitae)
"Technics for improving beam quality of solid state and fiber lasers based on nonlinear interactions and adaptive optics"

The performances, reliability and cost effectiveness of diode pumping has largely contributed to the current maturity of the laser technologies. It permits to realize more efficient sources and to extract more energy and power from the amplifying media in the continuous or pulse operating modes. These requirements are challenging innovative approaches for the design of new laser architectures emitting high powers and high brightness beams whose quality is close to the diffraction limit. This lecture will review nonlinear interactions and adaptive optics techniques which permit a dynamic correction of any beam distortion in the laser. Among these techniques, phase conjugation, nonlinear beam cleanup by two-wave mixing, stimulated Brillouin scattering, dynamic holography in gain media, programmable phase plates and coherent beam combining will be presented. Applications of these techniques to fiber lasers will be discussed in order to increase the power or energy levels beyond what is possible to achieve with a conventional single fiber laser.

Dr. C. P. J. Barty Program Director of the Photon Science and Applications Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
(Curriculum Vitae)
"Ultrahigh Intensity Laser Design and Applications "

The development of technologies which enable the high fidelity amplification of ultrashort duration (femtoseconds) laser pulses enables the generation of petawatt (10E15 Watts) peak power laser pulses and creation of focused intensities of order 10E21 W/cm2 and higher. Above 10E18 W/cm2, the electric field of the laser can drive electrons to relativistic velocities on a single cycle of the laser field. New opportunities for electron accelerators, particle beams, laser fusion and unique sources of x-ray and gamma-rays etc result. This course will introduce the technologies and techniques required for both high-repetition and high-energy, ultrahigh intensity laser pulse generation and will review a variety of applications of these systems from basic science to industrial applications.