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On Tuesday 24th of January, ‘The Big fair´´' was held by Kent Union at University of Kent to showcase a variety of societies they have to offer. As the Optica Student Chapter has recently become a society with Kent Union, a stall was held at this event for Applied Optics PhD students to share their activities and plans and to encourage interest in joining.

Being held in the University Sports Hall meant that everybody was protected from the cold outside, which made for a lovely environment for students to stroll around and see what’s on offer. Participants from the Optica Chapter included NETLAS PhD Students Alejandro Martinez Jimenez, Philipp Tatar-Mathes, Gopika Venugopal and AOG PhD Students Julien Camard, and Lucy Abbott.

To encourage visitors to the stall the chapter provided an array of sweet treats as well as a fun game. The game was in the form of a whiteboard maze, but with a twist. Participants were tasked with completing the maze whilst wearing prism glasses, inverting their vision. Each participant was timed and the fastest time won a prize on behalf of the student chapter.

Overall the day was very successful and all who were there appeared to have a great time promoting and talking about optics. The chapter looks forward to welcoming any new members who may arise from this event. Hopefully, some new faces will appear at the next event, being a board game social on the evening of the 26th!

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@Article by AOG PhD Student Lucy Abbott

Have a look at our flyer! Social event coming soon!

"Presentation from past PhD student, Dr Sophie Caujolle. Sophie completed postgraduate study in Applied Optics here at Kent and now works as Technology Scout at Heidelberg Engineering. This talk will outline the experience of transitioning to industry from academia."

Friday 23^rd September, the Optica Student Chapter at Kent held a stall at Kent Union’s Welcome Fair for the first time, after it officially became part of the University’s student societies at the end of this Summer. The idea behind this new status is to improve the connection with the student community on campus and simplify the treasury. 

Throughout the day, many students visited our stall and competed in the complex “Upside Down Maze” game, in which they had to complete a maze on a whiteboard with special prism goggles that flip the vision around. The fastest time of the day was an impressive 10 seconds, and the winner won a £20 voucher.

The results will be soon communicated to students and they will be invited to a first social event on campus, where will we be playing board games and sharing drinks! 

On Friday 16th September, a delegation of 7 AOG researchers made their way to Hampshire for a visit of the UK branch of NKT Photonics, one of the world's leading companies in ultrafast, high power and supercontinuum lasers. 

...continue reading "COMPANY VISIT: NKT Photonics UK"

On Thursday 8^th September 2022, the Applied Optics Group was honoured by the visit of Yann Amouroux, Optica’s Director for Europe. Although many AOG members were away at the 25th Congress of the International Commission for Optics ICO-25 Conference in Dresden, Germany (5-9 Sept 2022),  fruitful discussions took place in the University’s Photonics Centre and over a nice lunch, for Yann’s first visit since 2019’s pre-covid times. This visit was a great occasion to raise questions about our Student Chapter (new Kent Union society status, recruitment of new members etc.) and to hear the latest news coming from Optica and other student groups. We were especially pleased to hear that a new Chapter had just been started in Southampton and we aim to visit them very soon! 

From left to right, Yann Amouroux (Dir. Optica Europe), Julien Camard (AOG PhD), Manuel J. Marques (AOG Lecturer) and Lucy Abbott (AOG PhD)

For more information about starting or developing a Student Chapter, you can contact Yann Amouroux. For more information about the Chapter at Kent, please contact its President, Alejandro Martinez Jimenez, or visit the Chapter’s website! 

Post Written by: Julien Camard

Between the activities of the OPTICA Student Chapter, the company visits its listed. Hence, is always good to make a visit to our closest company in Kent, CAIRN Research.

Home

The company chairman, Martin Thomas, previously visited the AOG labs, and following our conversation we initiated a visit to his company.

Martin (green t-shirt in the photo) guided the group into his labs, telling us how the company was settled in Kent and how they adapt to the necessities of the industry. Seems like it was a great adventure!

Jez Graham, CEO of Cairn Research, showed us some of the products that they developed for their customers. Completely customized products for their customers.

@Jezpersonal and Martin Thomas explaining the modularity and different configurations available for our new open-source microscope, the openFrame, to students from @AOGKent @osaukc pic.twitter.com/qkEJIfadb0

— Cairn Research (@Cairn_Research) May 23, 2022

We really had a great experience during the visits, fascinating tools are the ones that they have. We wish them all prosperity and success in the following years! Hope that we can collaborate more in the future, and see more of our PhD Students in your company!

This Student Chapter together with the Applied Optics Group at the University of Kent has initiated a poster session for the International Day of Light. Different students have prepared posters with little concepts on light and its deep application, all related to their research topics.

If you want to zoom in and have a close look on the posters! Please have it attached just below:

With this initiative, the Chapter administration wanted to let the student chapter known to the students at the University of Kent. They are more than welcome to visit us and join our activities.

The last Thursday 21st April 2022, Prof Marinko visited the AOG and gave a talk about his recent developments in the OCT field with a special interest in how to take advantage of AI with OCT-A. Check below the abstract of the talk.

Title: OCT Angiography and AI for Diabetic Retinopathy

Abstract: Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is one of the leading causes of
vision loss in working age adults. The pathological changes to the
retina, the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye, due to DR can
be imaged with optical coherence tomography (OCT), and the
microvasculature visualized with OCT Angiography (OCTA). Artificial
intelligence (AI) tools to analyse the OCT intensity and OCTA flow
contrast image data may assist with the classification of DR, and has
potential to identify early changes that may be predictive of disease
severity.

Bio: Prof Marinko Sarunic's research investigates optical imaging
devices for biomedical applications. Prof. Sarunic completed
undergraduate studies at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
and a doctoral degree at Duke University (Durham, NC, USA). The main
research focus is on optical coherence tomography (OCT), a non-invasive,
three-dimensional, micrometer-resolution imaging technique using the
interference of light. Prof. Sarunic's group designs and constructs OCT
imaging systems primarily for studies in ophthalmology and vision
science. In addition to OCT, their work covers various techniques for
structural and functional optical imaging and analysis.

Like everything in the last years, most of the things are delayed. For that reason, we've created the abnormal calendar, a calendar that doesn't start in January, it starts in February! Anyway, this has been a funny work done with all members of the Kent Optica Society members, with collaboration of most AOG members.

If you want to have a copy, go ahead and print the following pdf!