Symposium B
SMART OPTICS
MATERIALS – DEVICES – APPLICATIONS

The recent years have seen a growing request of advanced materials and devices for forefront technological applications. Optics and photonics, as enabling technologies, are pervasive of many aspects of our everyday life, and are particularly demanding in terms of novel materials and devices. Smart optical materials, which can be defined as materials with optical characteristics that change in a predictable manner in response to environmental conditions and/or to external stimuli, represent a very important class among the novel materials. The same importance can be attributed to smart structures (this term started to be used at the beginning of 1990s), which refer mainly to large infrastructures such as bridges, pipelines, dams, ships, trains, airplanes and spaceships, but also to houses and motor vehicles. Optical fibers have always played a key role in the development of smart structures, but the nanotechnologies, with their increasing capability to manage the matter at the atomic, molecular and mesoscopic level, are offering novel tools and approaches. The new nanostructured materials will exhibit higher specifications than the conventional materials but will also open the way to new design concepts, e.g. based on the capability of closely mimicking the nature (biomimetics).
Another important area in astronomy combines smart and adaptive optics: adaptive smart structure elements may change the way space instruments are built, and could lead to the development of systems for large flexible space structures or flexible robotic manipulators. This Symposium intends to cover all aspects of optical smart materials, technologies, devices, and structures. These include, but are not limited to: novel thin film and bulk materials, photo- and electro-chromic coatings, electro-optic and photovoltaic coatings, photo- and electro-luminescent inorganic and organic materials, photonic bandgap structures, photonic crystal fibers. New synthesis and processing methods, as well as new and improved control and characterization techniques for the smart materials and devices are also sought.
Key applications areas are envisaged in automotive, avionics and aerospace, consumer products, defence, energy, security, environmental protection, health care, industrial process control, optical data storage and telecommunications, conservation and restoration of cultural heritage.

Session B-1 Smart Optical Materials

Novel/improved materials and synthesis methods
Nano and mesostructure design
Materials processing and functionalisation
Structure and properties: characterisation and optimisation

B-1.1 Spectrally active materials and devices
B-1.2 Functional materials, liquid crystals and applications
B-1.3 Light emitting materials
B-1.4 Metamaterials, composite and hybrid materials
B-1.5 Photonic crystal structures and microstructured fibers

Session B-2 Passive, Active and Adaptive Optical Devices and Systems

Optimal design
Micro- and nano-fabrication technologies
Integration technologies at macro- to nano-scale
Interfacing issues
Performance and reliability
Data acquisition, data processing, reduction and reliability

B-2.1 Optical MEMS, smart optical sensors and devices
B-2.2 Adaptive optical elements and adaptive/smart structures
B-2.3 Advanced material processes and fabrication technologies

Session B-3 Ongoing applications and perspectives

  • Agriculture and food safety
  • Astronomy and space
  • Automotive
  • Avionics
  • Consumer electronics
  • Cultural heritage protection and restoration
  • Defence
  • Energy
  • Environmental monitoring and protection
  • Healthcare
  • Industrial process control
  • Optical communication systems
  • Optical data storage
  • Remote sensing
  • Security
  • Structural health monitoring: civil engineering and infrastructure