AC.1. International Commission for Optics

5th Iberoamerican Meeting on Optics, and 8th Latinoamerican Meeting on Optics, Lasers and Their Applications - RIAO/OPTILAS 2004 Porlamar, Venezuela
3-8 October 2004

The RIAO/OPTILAS 2004 took place with great success the first week of October 2004 on the beautiful Island of Margarita (Venezuela). The meeting ran as ICO Regional Meeting with the support and co-sponsorship of the International Society for Optical Engineering SPIE, the Optical Society of America OSA, the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics ICTP, the Latinoamerican Center for Physics CLAF, the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics IUPAP and other important international organizations and local institutions.

Number of attendees

The meeting gathered 329 participants (no shows and cancellations excluded), 101 of then were women, coming from 23 different countries (see list of participants attached). The majority of the participants were from iberoamerican countries (Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Spain, Peru, Trinidad and Venezuela), however, more than 60 participants came from countries of the rest of the world showing the growing international character of this regional meeting. There were 12 cancellations and 23 no-shows. Attendees in terms of country of origin were: Argentina 41, Brasil 28, Canada 3, Colombia 37, Cuba 3, Chile 6, France 10, Germany 2, Israel 1, Italy 3, Japan 1, Korea 1, Mexico 66, Poland 1, Peru 5, Russia 1, Spain 28, Sweden 1, Swizerland 1, Trinidad Tobago 1, Turkey 1, USA 11 and Venezuela 77.

The conference demonstrated the maturity and increasing visibility of the optical research being conducted in the Iberoamerican region.

Scientific Program

515 short abstract were accepted for presentation: 192 oral presentations including 16 invited talks and 315 poster presentations. The presentations were distributed into 15 sessions including three poster sessions: Industrial and Biomedical Applications: 23 oral and 45 poster presentations, Quantum Optics and Lasers (23 oral and 35 posters) Nonlinear Optics (12 oral and 24 posters), Optical Materials (12 oral and 15 posters), Interferometry and Metrology (21 oral and 34 posters), Optical Devices (15 oral and 22 posters), Optoelectronic Devices (27 oral and 15 posters), Spectroscopy (4 oral and 33 posters), Physical Optics (14 oral and 29 posters), Atmospheric Optics (1 oral and 8 posters), Color, vision y radiometry (7 oral and 15 posters), Image processing (12 oral and 20 posters), Diffractive Optics (7 oral and 12 posters), Educations on Optics (5 oral and 3 posters) and Thin films (4 oral and 12 posters).

A total of 16 invited conferences were presented, two of them were presented by women invited speakers. Remarkable was the invited talk “Manipulating Light with Atoms” given by Dr. Claude Cohen Tannoudji, 1997 Nobel prize on Physics. The 2003 ICO Galileo Galilei Award ceremony took place during the program of the RIAO/OPTILAS 2004 on Tuesday October 5. This time the Galielo Galileo Prize was awarded to Dr. Cid de Araujo, from University of Pernambuco, Brasil, who delighted the audience with his invited talk about “Optical Nonlineaitities of Nanostructured Materials”. Other invited speakers were: Dr. George Stegeman, from the School on Optics (USA), Dr. Eric Van Stryland, Director of the School of Optics (USA) and Vicepresident of the OSA (USA), Dr. Noureddine Melikechi from the Applied Optics Center of Delaware (USA), Dr. Pierre Meystre from the University of Arizona (USA), Dr. Christos Flytzanis from le Ècole Normale (France), Dr. Alexander Lappa from the Chelyabinsk University (Russia), Dr. Pedro Andrés from the Valencia University (Spain), Dr. Sylvia Braslavsky from the Max Planck Institute (Germany), Dr. Jean Michel Nunzi and Xuan Nguyen Phu from the Angers University (France), Dr. Margonzata Kujawiaska from the Varsaw University and SPIE Vicepresident (Poland), Dr. Amadou Wague from the Dakkar Institute of Atomic Physics (Senegal) and Dr. Morandotti from the INRS-EMT (Canada). The SPIE President Dr. James Bilbro, the SPIE Executive Director Dr. Eugene Arthurs and other important SPIE directors participated in the activities of the RIAO/OPTILAS 2004.

A Forum about the possibilities of international cooperation for Iberoamerica was also organized with the presence of distinguished directors from SPIE, OSA and ICO. The 3th School on Optics and Photonics was also included into the program in which participated over 100 students from all over Iberoamerica. Eight talks of 45 minutes each were presented during the School.

During the General Assembly a recognition Plate was awarded to Dr. Galieno Denardo from the ICTP for his continuing support of scientific activities in developing countries. The Plate was received by Dr. Anna Consortini in representation of the Italian scientific community.

The RIAO/OPTILAS 2004 was also honored to host the ICO Board of Directors meeting, which took place on October 9 and 10.

Proceedings: Extended proceedings (4 to 7 pages) were published by the International Society for Optical Engineering SPIE on a CD ROM version (volume 5622, 2004, A. Marcano O. and J. L. Paz editors, 1567 pages containing 276 communications).

Grants: 145 students were offered support to assist to the RIAO/OPTILAS 2004 on ICO, OSA, ICTP, Argentina Optical Territorial Committee and CLAF grants. 123 of them profited of these grants. The total amount of funds used to support the assistance of scientists surpass the 30.000 USD

On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the RIAO/OPTILAS 2004 we would like to thank the IUPAP co-sponsorship of the Conference.

Arístides Marcano, RIAO/OPTILAS 2004 Chairman.