Leaders in the field of optics to speak at CLEO/QELS Plenary Session

CLEO/QELS 2000 will take place May 19-24, 2002 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, Calif. The Plenary and Awards session will take place in the 2nd Floor Ballroom of the Long Beach Convention Center, Wednesday, May 22 at 8:00am. Speaker information and presentation abstracts are listed below.

CLEO/QELS 2002 Plenary Speakers

Philip Russell, "Photonic crystal fibers: A holey renaissance" -- Light is trapped at structural defects in the "crystalline" array of microscopic air channels running along a photonic crystal fiber. The large air: glass refractive index difference - and the ability to control its distribution in two dimensions - permit greatly enhanced control of the guided modes. Applications are emerging in areas of laser science as diverse as frequency metrology, atom guiding and telecommunications.

Philip Russell is Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Bath, where he heads the Optoelectronics Group. Previously he has worked in universities and research laboratories across Europe and in the USA. He has 25 years experience and over 300 publications, in many aspects of photonics and has pioneered developments in fiber Bragg gratings, photonic band gap materials, acousto-optic fiber devices, nonlinear optics and periodically poled materials.

Steven Korotky, "Trends in Optical Components in Fiber Communications" -- There is a future. What will we need to meet and manage capacity demand in backbone data and IP networks? Innovative technologies will provide higher performance at lower cost.

Steven Korotky is Director for Advanced Optical Networking and Technology of Lucent Technologies' Optical Networking Business Group and has been actively engaged in the research and development of optical devices, systems, and networks for optical communication since joining Bell Laboratories in 1980. He holds a number of patents and is co-author of many publications and several books, among them Optical Fiber Telecommunications III and IV. He is best known for researching, developing, and introducing external modulation and pulse generation into high-speed fiber transmission systems deployed worldwide.

Wolfgang Ketterle, "Bose-Einstein condensates-superfluid gases" -- This talk will present Bose-Einstein condensates as a novel system for atomic physics and for many-body physics. At nanokelvin temperatures, a gas which is 100,000 times more dilute than air shows phenomena characteristic for a condensed matter system.

Wolfgang Ketterle received a diploma (equivalent to master's degree) from the Technical University of Munich (1982), and the Ph.D. in physics from the University of Munich (1986). After postdoctoral work at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics at the University of Heidelberg and at MIT, he joined the faculty of the physics department at MIT in 1993, where he is now the John D. MacArthur professor. He does experimental research in atomic physics and laser spectroscopy and focuses currently on Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute atomic gases. He has received numerous awards for his research including the Nobel Prize in Physics (2001), the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship (1996), the Rabi Prize of the American Physical Society (1997), the Gustav-Hertz Prize of the German physical society (1997), the Discover Magazine Award for Technological Innovation (1998), the Fritz London Prize in Low Temperature Physics (1999), the Dannie-Heineman Prize of the Academy of Sciences, G�ttingen, Germany (1999), the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics (2000). To register to attend CLEO/QELS 2002, please visit the Web site at www.cleoconference.org or fax your registration form to 708/344-4444.

About CLEO/QELS

The Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) is the key forum for the optical device technology development and systems engineering that are the foundation of the ongoing revolution in a wide range of applications. From optical fiber communications to medicine, these applications exploit the latest advances in lasers and electro-optics. From the latest research and development to the newest technology, components and systems, CLEO sets the pace for the industry and provides the definitive marketplace for laser and electro-optical equipment.

The Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference (QELS) is the largest North American conference concerning research in lasers, nonlinear optics, and the fundamental laser spectroscopy of atoms and condensed matter. QELS is held annually, except for years when International Quantum Electronics Conference (IQEC) is held with CLEO. This guarantees that a coordinated pair of high-quality meetings are held each year to present the latest basic and applied research, and application in the related fields of quantum electronics, laser science, and electro-optics.