The European Optical Society Annual Meeting, EOSAM 2024, was held in the sunny and captivating city of Naples, Italy, 9-13 September, at the facilities of CESTEV, University of Naples Federico II. It was organized this year in close collaboration with the Italian Society for Optics and Photonics (SIOF), the Italian branch of the European Optical Society (EOS). EOS and SIOF worked together to ensure a meeting with the highest quality and novel research results in different fields of optics.
The conference was chaired by General chairs Luca De Stefano, President of SIOF, and Raffaele Velotta, professor at the University of Federico II; and program chairs Emiliano Descrovi, President of EOS and Patricia Segonds, Past President of EOS. The EOS Office coordinated and handled the organization led by the Executive Director, Elina Koistinen. EOS would also like to extend its gratitude to Gennaro Piccialli, Director of CESTEV, for providing the venue for the conference.
The agenda was packed with ten topical meetings and five focused sessions on selected trending topics that piqued the interest of conference attendees. As an added benefit, 12 tutorials covering Topical Meeting (TOM) and Focused session topics were held on Monday, 9 September 2024. In addition, EOSAM hosted EU Project Sessions, Early Stage Researcher Session, and Session on the Industrial Mastering of Optical Technologies and Systems, all held in parallel in multiple rooms, including a spacious auditorium for the nearly 500 attendees. The exhibition and industrial program, including the Industrial Optics Podium Session, strengthened the ties between academia and industry. The welcome reception, coffee breaks, lunch, and dinner, all provided as part of the registration, created ample opportunities for effective networking, reinforcing EOSAM’s status as an important platform for the European optics and photonics community.
EOSAM 2024 attracted 470 top researchers, key leaders, students, and industry experts from 36 countries worldwide, half of the countries being from outside of Europe. A considerable number of PhD students attended the conference, with students making up over 25% of the total attendees, bringing fresh perspectives to the discussions.
The opening ceremony was a truly special moment as we were honored to have some of our Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) partners present, representing esteemed optical societies and networks from around the world: Prof. Bo Gu, Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Optical Society (COS); Prof. Yoshimasa Kawata, President of the Optical Society of Japan (OSJ); Dr. Orlando Frazão, Representative of the Iberoamerican Network for Optics (RIAO); Prof. Chi-Kuang Sun, President of the Taiwan Photonics Society (TPS); and Antigone Marino, Representative of the European Physical Society (EPS).
The exhibition featured nine companies from Tuesday to Thursday, creating a buzz of excitement during coffee and lunch breaks as attendees exchanged ideas, contacts, and information. Around 70 posters were presented on Wednesday and Thursday, allowing ample time for discussions and interaction.
The program also included a diverse lineup of plenary speakers, each presenting groundbreaking research in photonics: Anna Peacock, Miles Padgett, Hatice Altug, Kishan Dholakia, Claudio Conti, Fredrik Laurell, and Chi-Kuang Sun. A huge thank you to these speakers for their eye-opening presentations and valuable insights into the future of photonics.
For those participants who have chosen to submit their abstracts to the EOSAM proceedings, the final accepted versions are published online, in EPJ Web of Conferences, by EDP Sciences. You can access the online proceedings from EOSAM 2024 here. Each article is assigned a DOI number and referenced via CrossRef®. Additionally, a printed version of the proceedings volume will be made by Curran Association after publication. (You can also view the online proceedings from EOSAM 2023 here.)
The papers published in the EOSAM proceedings are highly visible, as they are indexed in multiple platforms, including recently added indexing in Scopus. EPJ Web of Conferences is an open access publication series focused on publishing high-quality conference proceedings in the fields of Physics and related sciences. Scopus is one of the world’s largest abstract and citation databases of peer-reviewed literature. This inclusion recognizes the high quality of research published and enhances the visibility, discoverability, and impact of the EOSAM conference proceedings across the global scientific community.
One of the main activities of EOS is publishing the EOS Journal, JEOS-RP. JEOS-RP is an online, open-access journal, indexed in several databases, and published in collaboration with national societies around Europe. The publisher of JEOS-RP is EDP Sciences. (JEOS-RP provides prompt, open-access, high-quality publications with peer review, indexed in all the main databases. The EOS Prize consists of a diploma and an invitation to present a plenary lecture, the JEOS-RP Highlight, during the EOSAM meeting. This lecture is closely related to the research covered by the paper with the same list of authors. The registration fees for the author presenting the lecture are waived. The best paper is selected by the EOS Prize Committee: the two JEOS-RP Chief Editors and the EOS Past President.)
To celebrate the best papers published in the journal, EOS awards the EOS Prize annually in-person, with a diploma and invitation to hold a plenary speech at the EOSAM conference. This year the EOS Prize was awarded to the paper titled " Terahertz nondestructive stratigraphic reconstruction of paper stacks based on adaptive sparse deconvolution" published in 2024. The winners were honored with a diploma at EOSAM 2024, with an invitation to hold a plenary talk at the main stage of EOSAM. Alexandre Locquet delivered an insightful plenary presentation on the work. Congratulations to the authors, Min Zhai, Alexandre Locquet, and David Citrin, for this remarkable achievement!
EOS also awarded Roberta Ramponi as an Honorary Member of the European Optical Society, as voted by the EOS membership in 2023. Her work has had a profound impact on the fields of optics and photonics, and we were thrilled to honor her achievements with the EOS Honorary Member award.
In her acceptance speech, Roberta describes EOS as her "optics home". She reminisces about the early days of the society, and the impact EOS has had on the community since, comparing EOS to EC and EU, highlighting the role of EOS as the combining force towards coherence in Europe: "The European Optical Society managed to gather most of the National Societies together and really work as a team with friendship and collaboration looking at open science". You can watch her inspiring speech HERE. Congratulations, Roberta!
This year, EOS was proud to welcome Fredrik Laurell, Lluis F. Marsal, and Orlando Frazão as the new EOS Fellows, recognizing their exceptional contributions to the optics and photonics community. This honor not only reflects their remarkable achievements but also their unwavering dedication to advancing the field. Congratulations to all!
The EU project sessions, now organized for the eighth time, included 13 innovative projects and were chaired by Lydia Sanmartí-Vila (ICFO) and Michael Wale (University College London, Eindhoven University of Technology, Photonics21). The session began with an engaging introduction featuring experts like Werner Steinhoegl (European Commission), Roberta Ramponi (Photonics21), Susan Brindley (PhotonHub Europe), and Lydia Sanmartí-Vila (CARLA Hub). They highlighted the pivotal role of photonics in driving European innovation, autonomy, and the importance of diversifying talent through programs like CARLA, which promote photonics careers and professional development opportunities. EOS is one of the partners of the 360 Carla consortium and will organize a career symposium offering training and experiences for students from photonics and non-photonics backgrounds. The EOS-organized 360 CARLA symposium will be held in December 2025, in Grenoble, France.
Projects presented at the EOSAM EU project session included: BIOCELLPHE (Revolutionizing cancer diagnostics with single-cell protein detection), OPHELLIA (On-chip Photonics Erbium-doped Laser for LiDAR Applications), TinyBrains (Understanding the brain damage in infants with congenital heart defects), RAVEN (Developing advanced air pollution and greenhouse gas monitoring systems), I-SMarD (Smart, multifunctional dental implants), IBAIA (Monitoring water quality with multi-sensing technology), ARTEMIS (Development of integrable single and entangled photon sources based on metallorganic molecular compounds), 2DNeuralVision (Developing a low-power computer vision system for adverse weather or low-light conditions), SISHOT (Characterizing ultrashort laser pulses), SEQUOIA (Sensing using quantum OCT with AI), EPIQUS (Electronic-photonic integrated quantum simulator platform), and QSNP (Securing data with quantum cryptography).
EOSAM 2024 included high-quality program within the following 10 Topical meetings (TOMs):
• TOM1: Silicon Photonics and integrated optics
• TOM2: Frontiers in Optical Metrology
• TOM3: Optical System Design, Tolerancing and Manufacturing
• TOM4: BioPhotonics and biosensors
• TOM5: Nanophotonics
• TOM6: Optical Materials
• TOM7: Ultrafast Phenomena
• TOM8: Nonlinear and Quantum Optics
• TOM9: Opto-electronics, Nanotechnologies & Microsystems
• TOM10: Applications of Optics and Photonics
EOSAM also featured focused sessions that addressed hot topics of particular interest to attendees, highlighting several areas reflecting emerging trends in optics and photonics. This year’s topics included Holography and Structured light, Optical Fibers Technology, Passive Radiative Cooling, Photonics for cultural heritage, and Machine-Learning for Optics and Photonic Computing for AI.
In EOSAM 2024, as in previous EOSAM conferences, in addition to the conference program including contributed and invited speakers, EOS provided an additional benefit to all registered attendees in the form of tutorials covering TOM and Focused session topics. 12 tutorials speakers took the stage on Monday before the official opening of the conference: Sebastian Riese, Oliver Fähnle, Jacopo Bertolotti, Ignacio Moreno, Francesca Intonti, Alberto Puliafito, Katerina Kusova, Giovanni Pellegrini, Luca Sortino, Stefania Campopiano, Dawson Bonneville, and Roozbeh Shokri. A special thank you to our exceptional speakers who delivered outstanding sessions and shared their expertise with the EOSAM attendees.
After the relevant tutorials, the industrial program was continued with the well-attended sessions on Industrial Mastering of Optical Technologies and Systems (fondly referred to as "IMOTS"), chaired by Oliver Fähnle, EOS industrial committee chair, and Marco Hanft from Carl Zeiss AG.
The Industrial Optics Podium Session focused on successful know-how transfer from R&D to industry. EOS organized the podium together with the European Photonics Industry Consortium, EPIC. The podium was chaired by Oliver Fähnle, and Jérémé Picot-Clémente, Technology Manager at EPIC. The session featured insightful talks from Adèle Morisset (CTO and Co-founder of AeroDIODE), Jose Valverde Sanchez (Development Engineer at Holoeye), Reinhard Windemuth (Sales Director at Panasonic Connect), and Peter Zghaib (Research Engineer at ENGIE).
No conference in Naples would be complete without indulging in the exquisite Italian cuisine! Following the industrial optics podium, we invited all EOSAM participants to enjoy a delightful array of food and drinks, ensuring that no attendee was left hungry or without a wealth of new connections and business cards.
The conference dinner is also something to remember, with excellent food and wine, followed by a fantastic after party with a DJ where attendees shared the stage dancing. As a delightful surprise for our non-Italian guests, several Italian participants showcased choreographies to some Italian songs, inviting everyone to join in. Together, we learned the steps and embraced the joy of dancing, creating unforgettable moments filled with laughter.
This year’s EOSAM was particularly special as we also celebrated an incredible milestone—50 years of passive radiative cooling in Naples. This groundbreaking scientific achievement was commemorated by Emeritus Professor Luigi Nicolais, highlighting decades of research and innovation in this field. This anniversary not only celebrates a major scientific milestone but also honors Professor Nicolais's enduring impact on the field.
In addition to celebrating significant scientific milestones, EOS also recognizes the bright minds of the future. EOS proudly awarded the best student presentations at EOSAM, sponsored this year by Bühler, Evatec, and Rhysearch. Congratulations to the winners: Rosanna Mosetti, Dept. of Physics, University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy; Sara Martino, Dept. of Precision Medicine, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Naples, Italy; and Ahmad Alduweesh, University College London, United Kingdom!
Finally, EOSAM authors have the opportunity to submit an extended paper to the journal of EOS, JEOS-RP, with exceptionally low publishing fees. For more information, please click HERE.
A heartfelt thank you to everyone involved in and attending EOSAM this year! We appreciate the contributions of our exhibitors, partners, and sponsors. The memories of EOSAM 2024 will linger long after the conference, and we look forward to creating new ones in Delft, the Netherlands, from August 24-28, 2025. Be sure to mark your calendars for the next edition of the EOSAM scientific conference and exhibition!
Until we meet again,
Elina Koistinen, EOS Executive Director
Boglárka Selényi, EOS Communications and Events