JANUARY 20--The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE; Bellingham, WA: www.spie.org) has unveiled plans for a major European optics conference and exhibition in 2004. Called Photonics Europe, the event is due to take place in Strasbourg, France, 26--30 April. It is expected to run every two years.
Scott Walker, the SPIE project manager for Photonics Europe, says that several factors led to its creation. "The primary reason is that SPIE has a lot of members, almost 4000, in Europe," he commented. "We want this to be a large pan-European event." The European Optical Society along with two French optics bodies (Societe Francaise d'Optique, the Groupement des Industries Francaises d'Optique) and an Italian optics society (Italiana di Ottica e Fotonica) have already agreed to lend their support.
Although a detailed program for the event has not yet been finalized, SPIE says that it will consist of "an international congress with educational programs, workshops, plenaries, internationally known speakers, and a product and services exhibition."
Hugo Thienpont, a professor of photonics at the Vrije Universitat Brussel in Belgium, has been appointed as one of the technical chairs of Photonics Europe. He says the conference will have three main technical tracks: microphotonics; photonics design, metrology and instrumentation; and photonics in multimedia technologies. It will also feature a series of free educational tutorials.
"We do not want to clash with established events such as ECOC [European Conference on Optical Communication] or Laser Munich, said Thienpont. You will not see anything on optical communication or big lasers at Photonics Europe." Thienpont says that in 2004, all of SPIE's European topical meetings will be rolled into Photonics Europe, instead of taking place throughout the year as individual events.
