Photonics West 2019: courses, networking and visiting Silicon Valley

I’m back in San Francisco for Photonics West. A lot has changed since last time: I’m married, I graduated from my Ph.D., my wife and I moved to Canada, and I started a job as a process scientist at Excelitas Technologies Canada.

Through all of this I’ve worked to keep up my engagement with the optics and photonics professionals societies, and in particular with the SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. I’ve started a second term as member of the SPIE Education committee and the Student and Early Career Professional Ad Hoc Committee. My attendance to Photonics West is supported by the SPIE and I’m grateful for the opportunity to keep contributing to the society’s missions in Education and for young professionals.

As a recent addition to the semiconductor manufacturing workforce, the program of my week looks at lot different to being a Ph.D. or postdoctoral researcher. SPIE offers courses that are pertinent to my field of work, which my employers value. I will be attending the following courses to develop my knowledge of the technical semiconductor sector in photonics, as well as skills on project management and product development.

As always, a conference is a meeting and an excellent place for networking, learning about developments in the field of photonics, and finding people to collaborate on new and exciting projects. The first place you’ll be able to find me is on Sunday night from 9 pm at 21st Amendment Brewery for the SPIE Careers Lab meetup – see the Facebook event for more information. I’ll be around the conference at the technical sessions, the trade show and the special events. I’m also excited to be visiting Silicon Valley later in the week. More on that later. Follow this space for more details and if you’re in town, get in touch!

St Andrews, Fife

Photos of St Andrew, Fife, Scotland. Enjoy!

Shanghai and Suzhou

I spent a long weekend re-exploring Shanghai (8 years since my last visit) and discovering the quaint town of Suzhou. Enjoy the pictures!

Shanghai

Shanghai landmarks: the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

The Shanghai Big Three: World Financial Tower, Jinmao Tower, Gensler Tower (left to right).

Coffee with a view at Park Hyatt, on floor 87!

The Shanghai Museum, on People's Square — The Shanghai Museum, on People’s Square.

Suzhou

Lion Grove Gardens, UNESCO world heritage site.

The rock exhibition at Lion Grove Gardens.

North Pagoda Temple and gardens, Suzhou.

Buddha in the Pagoda, North Temple Pagoda, Suzhou.

Zhejiang Province

Welcome to my gallery of photos from Zhejiang province, featuring highlights from Hangzhou and surrounding areas. Enjoy!

Update 01/06 – Visiting Lingyin and Yongfu temples

A warn day exploring the Yongfu temple, Hangzhou — A warm day exploring the Yongfu temple, Hangzhou

"His belly is big enough to ingest all of the evils of the Earth" — “His belly is big enough to ingest all of the evils of the Earth”

Shrines in Yongu temple - front side — Shrines in Yongfu temple – front side

Shrines in Yongu temple - back side — Shrines in Yongfu temple – back side

Update 30/05 – Impression Westlake Show

Light-fan: an amazing show of lights and reflection

How many dancers were there? Illusions and projections of ballerinas on the lake.

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West Lake Panorama, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.

British tourist in Hangzhou, West Lake, China.

Grandma's Home restaurant — Grandma’s Home restaurant

Thanks

Thank you for following

The first episode of my travels and research in North America is drawing to a close. It’s been wonderful and I have many people to thank.

Large back packs and a poster tube for research and travel.

I have visited people in 9 universities and 3 companies in the last 8 weeks. Thank you for giving me your time. I have enjoyed having the opportunity to discuss my research, my outreach & education work, and my plans for the future. It has been a true pleasure to meet you and find out what you do and what drives you.

Thank you to the organisations that have supported me throughout: the OSA, the SPIE, the University of Southampton and its’ Optoelectronics Research Centre, for providing me with the means and the networks to reach out to places far and wide and assist me in crafting my research adventure.

Thank you to all the people that I have met along the way. The new meetings have been rich and inspiring, the reunions have been great. I wish that I will see you again soon.

Thanks to the Lightwave team — A Powerpoint-thanks to the Lightwave team, as seen during my conference presentations.

Thank you to all of you that got me here, kept in touch, and followed the blog; you, unknowingly perhaps, kept me going throughout. My supervisors, Peter and James, for letting me go ahead with this project. Stephan, for encouraging me to blog and enhancing this space with cool maps, videos and a subscriber mailing list. The Lightwave team, all of you who make me feel a part of this wonderful community of research, education and inspiration; it was an honour to present our work at an international conference and tour our kit across North America. And of course, my family, and Mum, Dad, Rebecca for being there, always; and Becky, love of my life.

Thank you all

A surprise reunion with Becky at London Heathrow on my way back! — A surprise reunion with Becky at London Heathrow on my way back.

Hampshire

Welcome back to the UK. Here are some pictures taken from sunny Hampshire.

The Milbury's at Beauworth — The Milbury’s at Beauworth

Southampton: the old, not so old and modern.

St Michael's Church, Southampton — St Michael’s Church, Southampton

Over the Heath to Ipley cross, New Forest National Park

Exploring roads in the New Forest National Park

California

Welcome to my gallery of my trip through California. Enjoy!

Update February 2018! See my latest post on my trip to Photonics West 2018.

Becky, me and Lake Tahoe selfie at Squaw Valley.

On top of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.

Summer 2016 in California.

Getting above the clouds, west peak of Mount Tamalpais.

Just getting above the clouds near Stinson Beach.

Visites à Montréal

When in Montreal…

Parlons français! // French spoken here!

À Montréal c’est pratique d’être bilingue! Je passe la semaine chez Laurie, une très chère amie de mes années collégiennes et lycéennes en France. C’ést génial de passer du temps avec elle à découvrir la ville et rencontrer ses amis. Par le plus grand hasard Max, un ami d’enfance, habite à Montreal aussi!

Je profite d’être en ville pour continuer mon tour des universités de l’Amérique du Nord. La population étudiante montréalaise est énorme, avec pas moins de 9 universités à travers la ville. Ça me permet donc de visiter la ville en allant d’un campus à un autre, et j’ai la chance de pouvoir me déplacer avec un vélo emprunté à une des collocs de Laurie.

My bike for my week in Montreal. — En vélo à Montreal.

J’ai donc commencé par une visite à McGill, une université plutôt anglophone. Lors de ma conférence à Vancouver j’ai rencontré un chercheur, Sasa Ristic, et il m’a invité à visiter son labo lors de mon passage en ville. Il travaille avec un outil pour faire de la nanolithographie, c’est à dire l’écriture de formes avec des tailles à l’échelle du nanomètre, soit 1,000 à 100,000 fois plus petites que l’épaisseur d’un de nos cheveux.

Pour quoi faire? Les transistors, par exemple, qui font fonctionner nos téléphones et nos ordinateurs se miniaturisent depuis plus de 50 ans, et aujourd’hui leur taille est à l’échelle du nanomètre. Des outils d’ingénierie ont été développés pour créer ces composants nanométriques, et en ce faisant les chercheurs ont su identifier d’autres opportunités pour l’utilisation de ces machines de ‘nanofabrication’. Me voilà donc en compagnie d’un outil dont on commence à rechercher comment l’employer pour des nouvelles techniques de fabrication.

En compagnie du NanoFrazor de SwissLitho AG à McGill.

Je suis passé visité l’Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal pour rencontrer le comité de leur association étudiante OSA et SPIE. C’est très inspirant de voir ce que d’autres groupes autour du monde mettent en œuvre pour leur membre. Ils organisent des séminaires sur comment rédiger des articles scientifiques, des concours de culture générale entre étudiants et professeurs, et participent à des festivals de science pour le grand public, tels que le festival Eurêka qui se déroule au Vieux Port de Montreal. Me voici avec Jean-Sébastien en train de de voir le monde à travers les yeux de différents animaux!

Comment voir le monde autrement, avec des casques et des mirroirs.

Je fus particulièrement impressionné d’apprendre que les associations étudiantes en photoniques dans l’est du Canada se retrouvent tous les ans pour discuter et organiser des rassemblements internationaux d’étudiants pour une conférence.

Merci à tous pour l’accueil chaleureux lors de mon séjour en ville!

Ontario and Quebec

Bienvenue à ma gallerie du Québec et de l’Ontario! On parle français ici aussi!

Welcome to my gallery of Ontario and Quebec! French spoken here too!

Sainte Nom de Marie, Montreal — Saint-Nom-de-Marie, Montreal

Poutine, a local Quebec delicacy of fries, cheese curds, meat and gravy.

St George at the University of Toronto's downtown campus — St George at the University of Toronto’s downtown campus

Students of the University of Toronto graduate in the Convocation Hall

The family flat on Dan Leki way giving onto Lake Ontario — The family flat on Dan Leckie way giving onto Lake Ontario

Boulder wrap-up

Boulder has been great. I hope you saw the pictures and my post about my visit to NIST.

Last Thursday I had a mini industry day. I started the day with coffee with David Giltner, product manager at Zolo technologies, and who I, and the University of Southampton Optics and Photonics Society, have invited to Southampton to give a talk to try and answer the question “Can a scientist find a rewarding career in industry?” That’ll be on September 13th, stay tuned!

I followed up with a visit to Vescent Photonics in Golden. They, amongst other things, help take scientific ideas and make them into products. They are doing some really exciting work on packaging lasers, and I talked about some of the work that fellow PhD student Stephen Lynch is working on.

On Friday I visited the University of Colorado Boulder. Their OSA-SPIE chapter showed me around their labs. They are working on some really cool stuff, including portable LIDAR systems for remote sensing in water (see Rory holding his portable system below), optical filters (think light) that you can tune with acoustic waves (think sound) for spectroscopy imaging, and silicon photonics for light-based computing. It was great to meet the chapter, who organised for me to present my research. I also caught up on Monday to present the outreach kit I am touring.

Rory Barton-Grimley with his single photon LIDAR.

Scientists and engineers love acronyms. Who can guess what ARSNL and SQUIDS stand for?

Here they are:

ARSNL: Active remote sensing lab
SQUIDS: Superconducting quantum interference devices

It’s not all people though. What’s kept me from writing here has been writing up two papers that I will be presenting at the SPIE Optics Education and Outreach conference that I’m attending in San Diego at the end of the month. Last week was spent writing in every possible break and 12+ hours day at the weekend. Thankfully I have a brilliant group of co-authors to review my words, and it was all submitted by Monday.

I felt like I deserved a break on my last day in town and headed out for a bike ride. It was a glorious day, pushing my body and bike up over the top of mountains. Super happy to have ridden to above the 3,000 metre mark. The descent was totally worth it though, as was the beer and pizza after!

Brainard lake, on a bike. My first ride ever over 3,000 metres!

Next up is Toronto. Hope you can tune in. You can now subscribe to updates to not miss any of my posts or gallery updates.

Thanks again for following!