SPIE Photonics West 2016 Kou Yoshiki

Research

Report on participation in SPIE PHOTONICS WEST 2016

First-year doctoral student, Kou Yoshiki

1. general impression

The 2016 SPIE Photonics West was held in San Francisco, USA, from February 13 to 18. It was the first time for me to stay in San Francisco since my first year as a master's student, and I missed it very much.

This was the first time for me to attend Photonics West, and my first impression was that it was very large. It was very difficult to grasp the whole picture because the sessions were held in three different halls. In addition, all the sessions at Photonics West were divided into the categories of BiOS, LASE, and OPTO, but the boundaries between the categories were not always clear, for example, similar sessions were in both LASE and OPTO, which was very confusing. It is difficult to find a presentation that interests you unless you do a lot of preliminary research beforehand. The conference information application for smartphones was also very difficult to use.

I attended the WGM resonator session all the time, and I was impressed that many prominent researchers such as Prof. Vahala, Prof. Kippenberg, Prof. Gaeta, Dr. Ilchenko, etc. were there. I felt that the lineup was more distinguished than at CLEO, perhaps because the conference was held in San Francisco, a location with good accessibility. As for the contents of the presentations, most of the above mentioned researchers were well known, but my overall impression of the sessions was that there were many researches aiming at adding specific functions to resonators by devising materials and structures of resonators. For example, tunable resonators using elastomers that expand and contract with light, and pH sensing by fabricating resonators made of protein. The Tanabe Laboratory hopes to keep up with this trend. The Tanabe Laboratory has had little novelty in "the resonator itself," so if we can claim originality from the resonator itself, we will have more visibility in the community. If we use the same resonator, the competition with the group that is ahead of us will be tough.

2. About your presentation

[9727-63] Time-domain observation of strong coupling between counter-propagating ultra-high q whispering gallery modes

The presentation was given at the poster session on the evening of 16th. The content of the presentation was time-domain observation of CW-CCW mode splitting in silicatroid resonators. The presentation was very long (2 hours), but the audience came almost without interruption, so it was a good opportunity to advertise our research. However, the mode splitting by CW-CCW mode coupling itself seemed to be a novelty for most of the audience, and few of them were able to discuss the time-domain measurement, which is the main point of this study. A Chinese audience member, who seemed to be studying silicatroid resonators, asked "Whyqis low?" he pointed out. of the toroid I used.qValue is 3 x 107and it is not low from the Tanabe Laboratory's point of view, but still the world's view is that Trojan'sqValue is 108I realized once again that it is normal to exceed the Personally, I feel that there is still room for optimization in reflow.qWe would like to make efforts to improve the value.

On the day of the poster presentation, I was very ill and stayed at a hotel until just before the presentation. It was a good thing that I was able to manage my poster presentation by discussing on the spot, but I shudder to think what would have happened if it had been an oral presentation that required careful preparation in advance. International conferences are full of factors that can easily make one physically ill, such as long flights, jet lag, and unfamiliar environments in foreign countries. Photonics West taught me the lesson that I need to take better care of my health than usual at international conferences.