20 June - 8 July, Related event: STELLA School 2011

STELLA 2011: The Experimental Summer School in Linear, Nonlinear and Quantum Optics

University of Insubria, Como, Italy

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On June 20th the 4th meeting of STELLA, the School for Training in Experiments with Lasers and Laser Applications has begun in Como, Italy. For three weeks, cutting-edge experiments in modern optics are performed directly in research labs at the Insubria University premises, for training purposes. These concern fs laser microfabrication (J. Dudley-Besancon), XUV generation (J. Biegert-ICFO), space-time pulse characterization (G. Tamosauskas-Vilnius), SLM beam shaping (M. Padgett-Glasgow), entanglement and Bell inequalities (P. Mataloni- Rome), thermal-light quantum statistics (M. Chekhova-Erlangen), Fourier-space microscopy (R. Cerbino-Milan), random-media speckle frequency correlation (F. Shefforld-Fribourg) and single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy (R.Rigler-Stockholm). A numerical course on fs intense pulse propagation (A. Couairon-Paris and M. Kolesik-Tucson) and a training action on paper writing are included as well.

STELLA represents the first training event where leading experts from several renowned research institutions gather in a single location, bring their own research equipment with them and share their knowledge about experimental setups, alignment tricks, measurement details, and experimental pitfalls with a number of students, coming from all over the world (Europe, Russia, Canada, South America, India, Australia, Singapore, Iran, etc).

The driving idea behind STELLA is simple, being the same one which has seeded the birth of universities in the Middle Age: the inherent unity between research and education. In other words, the proposed concept of “School” stems from the experience that “a discovery begins when two or more people start sharing it.”

In doing STELLA, students, professors, assistants and local organizers have the chance to verify and propose to the international optics community a novel approach to higher-education and research, which de-emphasizes competition among groups in lieu of a true enhancement of knowledge levels. Notably, the proposal is also of interest to laser-optics companies, curious in comparing private research with this open-innovation approach.

On behalf of the organizing committee:
John Dudley, Jens Biegert, Ottavia Jedrkiewicz and Paolo Di Trapani
www-stella-school.eu