


FEATURED EVENT

But not just for beer!
FREE Pizza at ħ-bar
Date: 16/02/23
Time: 5:30 pm
Location: ħ-bar, Imperial College Rd, South Kensington, London SW7 2BX
Casual drinks in ħ-bar to catch-up and welcome any new members to the society. Come and say hello if you are a postgraduate at Imperial College with an interest in optics and photonics! Both soft and alcoholic drinks available. We will be ordering pizza in, probably from Franco Manca or Domino's.
ONGOING
EVENTS
Spotlight on Photonics
Every month we invite a researcher, PhD student or post doc, from Imperial to speak about their work in photonics and optics. This is a great way to stay up-to-date with diverse and leading research that share a common themes of optics and photonics. If you can't make the talk in-person we can provide a video call link on request - but you will miss out on the refreshments!

Next talk:
Date: 23/02/23
Speaker: Ewan Mer
Title: Gaussian boson sampling experiments with time-bin encoding
Abstract: Since entering the information age, quantum science has already revolutionised the world in recent years. New opportunities to use the quantum advantages in real-world applications will impact on major industries across pharmaceuticals, defence, finance, and information technology. Here, I will introduce how to build a universal programmable temporally encoded GBS device, and how to use it in some real-world problems. Thanks to the resource-efficient temporal-encoding method, a large scale fully programmable and software scalable GBS device can be built. The universality of this device is exhibited by supporting any arbitrary graph encoded on it, and this offers great versatility in the scope of problems that it can encode.

Socials
We organise regular drinks, meals out and fun activities across London. these are only loosely based around optics, but are greater opportunity chat about your research and/or let off a bit of steam.
Next event: Drinks and FREE pizza in ħ-bar!
Date: 16/02/23
Time: 5:30 pm
Location: ħ-bar, Imperial College Rd, South Kensington, London SW7 2BX
Casual drinks and free pizza in ħ-bar to catch-up and welcome any new members to the society. Both soft and alcoholic drinks available. Looking forward to seeing you there!
PAST
EVENTS
Seminar by Prof. Rachel Grange:
Bottom-up assembly of nanocrystals for nonlinear, electro-optic, and quantum devices
Abstract: Nonlinear and electro-optic devices are present in our daily life with many applications: light sources for microsurgery, green laser pointers, or modulators for telecommunication. Most of them use bulk materials such as glass fibres or high-quality crystals, hardly integrable or scalable. Even the fast developments of thin film lithium niobate face the challenging etching of metal-oxides. Therefore, the quest for a non-centrosymmetric material system, easy to fabricate and to scale up while maintaining its functionality is still ongoing. Here we will present our recent advances on bottom-up photonic assemblies of randomly oriented nanocrystals and how we can produce electro-optic, nonlinear and parametric down conversion signals. First, barium titanate metalenses synthesized by a sol-gel technique will be demonstrated. Then, we will show how the electro-optic response in assembled nanostructures can be as strong as certain other perfect crystalline structure. Finally, we will generate photon pairs from free-standing lithium niobate microcubes and III-V nanowires at the telecommunication wavelength through the spontaneous parametric down-conversion process.

Rachel Grange
ETH Zurich, Department of Physics, Optical Nanomaterial Group
Since 2021, Rachel Grange is an associate professor in integrated optics and nanophotonics in the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich. She has been assistant professor at ETH Zurich since 2015. From 2011 to 2014, she was junior group leader at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. Her research covers material investigations at the nanoscale, top-down and bottom-up fabricated nanostructures with metal-oxides, mainly lithium niobate and barium titanate.
The International Day of Light 2022
On Monday 16th of May ICOS visited King's College London where researchers in photonics and optics, glass makers, and artists came together to celebrate the International Day of Light through seminars, glass-pulling and art installations that represent current optical research.
Our Secretary Anna Fischer, Dr. Cynthia Vidal and Dr. Raziman Valapu, from Imperial College, worked with local artists to create a visual representation of their research into nanophotonic lasers, single photon emission and complex laser networks. ICOS VP Emma Pearce demonstrated a working compact non-linear interferometer for imaging with undetected photon.
There were talks throughout the day from professors in nanophotonics and chemistry, award winning lighting designers, glass artists and holographers, giving their different perspectives on light from the nano to the architectural scale.
We finished off the day with a drinks reception and then regrouped with the ICOS members for a great meal at Baozilnn!
For more work by Grace Pappas (Fresnel Lens):
Instagram: grace_pps










