1. Elected Officers

President: Esteban Bermudez esteban.bermudez@icfo.es

Vice‐President : Anshuman Singh anshuman.singh@icfo.es

Secretary: Venkata Ramaiah Badarla venkata.badarla@icfo.es

Treasurer: Yannick Alan De Icaza Astiz yannick.deicaza@icfo.es

2. Current Chapter Members:

Venkata Badarla

Matthias Baudisch

Federica Beduini

Naeimeh Behbood

Esteban Bermudez

Rafael Betancur Lopera

Marta Castro Lopez

S. Chaitanya Kumar

Alberto Curto

Yannick de Icaza Astiz

Kavita Devi

Parisa Farzam

Michael Geiselmann

Dhriti Ghosh

Jan Gieseler

Marc Jofre

Waiz Karim

Claus Lindner

Vito Giovanni Lucivero

Mónica Marro Sánchez

Ferran Martin

Luis Martinez

Omar Olarte

Francesco Pastorelli

Saurabh Raj

Valeria Rodriguez Fajardo

Carmelo Rosales

Ana Belen Sainz

Enrique Sánchez Bautista

Anshuman Singh

Alexandre Thai

Domenico Tulli

Claudia Valdes

Giorgio Volpe

Future potential members who will join before first week of September

Roberto

Luis José

Paola

Adam

Mustafa

3. Activities during August 2011 – August 2012

3.1 Weekly Seminar

The members of ICFO‐SPIE student chapters organize a series

of seminar every Wednesday at our home institute, ICFO‐

The Institute of Photonic Sciences.

The speakers are mainly PhD Students and Post‐

doctoral researchers, as well as undergraduate students, professors at ICFO and

visitors. To encourage people to attend the seminars, some drinks

and snacks are also offered.

2012/07/04

PIETRO MASSIGNAN 'Impurities in Ultracold Systems'

PIETRO MASSIGNAN

Quantum optics theory group

2012/06/13

SILVIA CARRASCO 'KTT @ ICFO'

SILVIA CARRASCO

Knowledge & Technology Transfer Unit

2012/06/06

FIONA J. BECK 'Designing Plasmonic Nanoparticles for Light Trapping Applications in Solar Cells'

FIONA J. BECK

Soution-processed nanophotonics devices group

2012/05/30

FABIAN STEINLECHNER 'A High-Brightness Source of Polarization-Entangled Photons for

Applications in Space'

FABIAN STEINLECHNER

Optoelectronics group

2012/05/23

MARTA CASTRO 'Aluminum for Nonlinear Plasmonics: Resonance-Driven Polarized Luminescence

of Al, Ag and Au Nanoantennas'

MARTA CASTRO

Molecular Nano-photonics group

2012/05/09

JOSEPH CULVER 'Optical Imaging of Spontaneous Brain Activity'

JOSEPH CULVER

Medical Optics group

2012/04/04

JOONWOO BAE ‘Quantum Steering and No- Signalling Can Determine Optimal Quantum State’

JOONWOO BAE

Quantum Information Theory group

2012/03/21

YANN LOUYER 'Magneto-optical Properties of Single CdSe/ZnS Nanocrystals'

YANN LOUYER

Plasmon Nano-optics group

2012/03/14

SUNIL KUMAR 'Blue Light Excited Phosphors'

SUNIL KUMAR

Ultrafast imaging and nonlinear microscopy group

2012/02/22

NATHANIEL HERMOSA 'Beam Shape in Beam Shifts'

NATHANIEL HERMOSA

Quantum engineering of light group

2012/02/08

AMR S. HELMY 'Monolithic Semiconductor Circuits for Frequency Conversion and Quantum

Photonics'

AMR S. HELMY

Optical parametric oscillators group

2011/12/14

MARKO SPASENOVIC 'Surface Plasmon Polaritons and Light at Interfaces: Propagating and

Evanescent Waves'

MARKO SPASENOVIC

Nano-Optoelectronics group

2011/11/30

EVA RITTWEGER 'Publishing and Scientific Writing'

EVA RITTWEGER

Editor at Wiley-VCH Publisher, Weinheim, GERMANY

2011/11/16

PATRICK LEDINNGHAM 'Optical Rephasing Techniques with Rare Earth Ion Dopants for

Applications in Quantum Information Science'

PATRICK LEDINNGHAM

Quantum Photonics with Solids and Atoms group

ICFO-The Institute of Photonic Sciences

2011/11/02

SILKE L. DIEDENHOFEN ‘ Propoagation of Light in Ensembles of Semiconductor Nanowires’

SILKE L. DIEDENHOFEN

Solution-processed nanophotonic devices group

2011/09/29

ROBERT SIMPSON ’An Introduction to Phase Change Materials and their Potential as Photonic

Switches’

ROBERT SIMPSON

Optoelectronics group

3.2 Monthly ICONS meeting

To organize the activities of the ICFO-SPIE student chapter, we meet up to discuss

upcoming activities ranging from outreach to inter-chapter exchange meetings. Usually

this is held during the first week of every month with a treat of pizza. It’s a common

platform for the Ph.D. students to come up with new ideas for recruiting more people and

to make aware of the ongoing activities. Any future outreach activities either to schools

or for pre university students will be discussed and a separate protocol is recorded about

the theme and outcome of the meeting.

3.3 International Food Festival in September 2011.

Every year Icons organizes a food festival, where people from different countries form a

group and cook for the rest of the participants.

The participation shows unity in diversity of the student community. This year there are

six groups who participated in the contest.

Italian, Spanish, Colombian, Mexican, Indian, Japanese.

We invited two professional Spanish chefs as judges and rest of the people also can

vote for any team which they like.

This year Indian team won the first while Colombian and Italian are second and third

respectively.

3.4 Coffee sessions

2012/06/19

Up Close with Dr. Charles Vest

ICONS members’ informal meeting with Scientists

Dr. Charles Vest is President Emeritus of MIT and President of the US National

Academy of Engineering. Dr. Vest’s special meeting with the ICONS members

offered important reflections on the important role of science and learning

institutions in society.

3.5 Visits to Research Infrastructures and Industries

In a new initiative, ICONS and KTT decided to organize visits to out-standing Research

Infrastructures and Industries.

We visited the SEAT manufacture factory in Martorell which is around 1 hour and a half by bus from Barcelona City. This is SEAT´s largest facility, producing over 1000 cars per day. ICON members along with professors from ICFO were in this visit. The ICONS members are all PhD

students in ICFO working on different fields related with light, including quantum optics, bio-optics, nonlinear optics, opto-electric optics, etc. The other colleagues are from different departments in ICFO, including some group leaders and post-docs.

Super computer center

In March 2012 we visited the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) in Barcelona City. Around 50 ICFO members, including around 25 ICONS members attended this visit. The Supercomputing Center in Barcelona is located in a donated property from a Catalan fami ly. Interestingly the

building that shelters the BSC used to be the chapel from this family, and it́ s original outdoor and indoor design have been preserved, giving the Supercomputing facility a fancy appeal .

3.6 Social Friday

In order to encourage the relationship of the ICFO-SPIE student chapter with the PhD

students and other colleagues, and for the recruitment purposes, we set up this Social

Friday, where we encourage people to join this activity for talking while enjoying a drink

and a snack together.

3.7 El Día de la Luz (The Day of Light)

‘El Día de la Luz’, the day of light in Spanish, is our educational outreach activity to

teach the basics of optics mainly to local high school students between 16‐18 years, who

come to our institute with their teachers.

We introduce optics to the students through presentations and demonstrations of basic

examples of optics such as polarization, wavelength, color, energy conversion, reflection

and refraction.

Furthermore,

they experience how light is useful for our daily life, for example how light will be

converted to heat by a radiometer, or also to electricity by a solar cell; students are also

introduced to optical telecommunications by showing them how information is

transmitted through optical fibers.

3.8 Inter-chapter Exchange via Skype (3-11-2011)

We have organized a bilateral chapter exchange with the student chapters in

Netherlands and Mexico. He informally discussed about the outreach activities carried

by us and for future exchange programs like visiting the student chapters.

3.9 Workshops for high school teachers

With the collobaration of KTT, icon members organised a workshop for high school

teachers . In this workshop we made them familiar with some experiments which they

can use while teaching the students to have better understanding . This method has

greater impact on the young minds while learning .

3.10 ICONS attended the conferences of SPIE and IONS.

ICONS attend the 10th SPIE Student Chapter Leadership Workshop in San Diego,

California (August 2011) and the one held in Brussels, Belgium (2012).

This was a nice opportunity for many of us to meet young researchers and also to build

up leadership qualities. Also ICONS encourage its members to attend different student

conferences to build up the network and we partially support them financially.

3.11 Recruitment Activities:

Quite recently we have organized a beach volleyball tournament for all the Ph.D.

students and we were able to convince at least 5 members to become a SPIE

member. The event was a huge success where more than 70 (Ph.Ds. and post

docs) people have participated.

Among these activities we organized, we requested the funding for

3.1 Weekly Seminars

3.2 Monthly ICONS meeting

3.3 International Food Festival

3.4 Coffee sessions

3.5 Visits to Research Infrastructures and Industries

3.6 Social Friday

3.7 El Día de la Luz

3.8 Inter-chapter Exchange

3.9 Workshop to high school Teachers

3.10 ICONS conferences

3.11 Recruitment Activities (Beach volleyball)

The funding was spent in the following manner:

3.1 Weekly Seminars

$200: Refreshments (chips, cookies, drinks)

3.2 Monthly ICONS meeting

$300: Refreshments (pizzas and drinks)

3.3 International Food festival

$200: For buying stuff to different groups

3.4 Coffee sessions

$100: Refreshments (chips, cookies, drinks)

3.5 Visit to Research Infrastructures and Industries

$300: Transportation

3.6 Social Friday

$400: Refreshments and T-shirts for new members.

3.7 El Día de la Luz

$300: Educational outreach activities for local high school, optics education kits and dem

onstration setups.

3.8 Interchapter Exchange

$0: Skype talk

3.9 Work shop to High school Teachers

Completely sponsored by ICFO through KTT.

3.10 ICONS conferences

$250 for supporting students to attend student conferences.

3.11 Recruitment Activities

$100 Soft drinks and T shirts .

Total expenses: $2150

4. Upcoming Events

1) September: ICONS Workshop for Young Minds

(http://www.icfo.es/index.php?section=news4&lang=english&op=show_announcement&announcem

ent_id=1692)

2) September: International Food Day.

This is an annual activity held among ICFO-SPIE student chapter. Due to the

international environment in ICFO, students and researchers cook in different

groups cooking their special flavour from their own country.

3) November: ‘Futbolin’ tournament. Different groups of competitors will take part

in this exciting competition. This hobby lives up students´ time in the institute,

and amplifies our friendship by spending time together.

4) Weekly seminars.

5) Industrial visits.

6) Day of light.

7) Recruitment activities like social Friday and Beach volleyball.

8) Outreach activities to high schools besides lab visits in ICFO.

ICONS (ICfo Organization and Network of Students) offers a week full of activities related to photonics for 30 high school students in Catalonia. This workshop which will be held from the 4th to 7th of September 2012 at ICFO, is a collaboration between ICONS and ICFO’s Outreach Team and has the support of SPIE, the international Association of Optics and Photonics. Event activities will allow students with an interest in science to enjoy activities related to frontier research, optics, photonics and the science of light and life, as well as some leisure activities.

5. Financial information.

Beginning balance

$575 Balance from previous year 2010‐11

$1100 from SPIE outreach grant

$600 from ICFO

Total $2275

Expenses

Total $2150 as described above.

Ending balance

$2275 – $2150 = $125