ANNUAL REPORT 2017-18 Contents: 1. Chapter officers 2. Current members 3. Previous year activity proposal 4. Chapter activities: 4.1 Invited lecture series 4.2 Industrial visits 4.3 School outreach program optics education and vision screening 5. Financial status 6. Plans for the future S. No 1. SPIE IIT Madras student chapter officers Name Position Membership No. Email 1 Pretheesh Kumar V C President 3681697 pretheeshvc@gmail.com 2 Vivek Sivakumar Vice president 4056742 am15d034@smail.iitm.ac.in 3 Mahima Sharma BS Secretary 4011838 bsmahima@gmail.com 4 Akhil Krishnan M Treasurer 4010336 akhilkrishnanm92@gmail.com 2. Current members List of members 1 Renganathan Balusamy 9 Pretheesh Kumar V C 2 Shashank Chetty 10 Mahima Sharma BS 3 Kanjar De 11 Vivek Sivakumar 4 Udayakumar K 12 Sayoob Hameed Vadakke Chanat 5 Varun Kelkar 13 Vysakh Vasudev 6 Riddhi Nandi 14 Akhil Krishnan M 7 Navaneeth Krishnan K 15 Aneesh V V 8 Rahul V R
3. Previous year activity proposal Invited lecture series Spreading optics among school children through outreach program Conducting vision camp along with educating optics to school children Industrial visits 4. Chapter activities A series of activities were conducted by the SPIE Student Chapter of IIT Madras during this year, which saw the enthused interest and participation of many. Continuing with the last year s report, activities conducted included interesting talks from eminent people along with OSA IITM Chapter, industrial lab visits and a school outreach program to promote optics in education and a vision screening camp. Invited lecture series S.No Date Speaker Topic 1 July 7, 2017 Dr.Santanu Basu, Basu Labs Inc., USA 2 October 31, 2017 Dr. Upendra N. Singh, NASA Langley Research Center, USA 3 January 8, 2018 Prof Govind P. Agarwal, University of Rochester, USA 4 February 5, 2018 Dr. Amol Choudhary, University of Sydney, Australia New Technology Development in Lasers and Optoelectronics A Personal Journey NASA Sensors and Instrumentation for Space-based Remote Sensing Applications Space-Time Duality in Optics Photon-Phonon Interactions for High-Capacity Coherent Optical Communications Industrial visits S.No Date Organization 1 April 29, 2017 TIFR- Radio Astronomy Centre, Ooty 2 October 27, 2017 Raman Research Lab, Bangalore School Outreach Programs S.No Date School Activity 1 December 19, 2017 Kovillor Matric. Hr. Sec. school Optics Education 2 December 19, 2017 Kovillor Matric. Hr. Sec. school Vision screening
4.1 Invited talks 1. Title: New Technology Development in Lasers and Optoelectronics A Personal Journey by Dr. Santanu Basu Dr. Santanu Basu delivering his talk at IITM, Chennai
Dr. Santanu Basu, the founder of Basu Labs Inc. and Sparkle Optics is currently at Corning on optoelectronic projects. He has successfully developed and delivered a new class of high power lasers to customers. A fellow of SPIE, Dr. Basu has a track record of developing cutting edge optoelectronic technologies. He is a mentor for Stanford Cardinal Ventures and Berkeley Big Ideas. He is a fellow of SPIE. In his talk New Technology Development in Lasers and Optoelectronics A Personal Journey, Dr. Santanu Basu took us through the process that took place in the development of the world s first articles in different types of lasers including the solid state laser with a moving gain medium, diode- pumped modelocked laser, quantum well detector on silicon, transiently pumped electron collisionally excited extreme ultraviolet lasers, hybrid mm Wave/optical communication device and rotary disk laser. This exciting process that led to the development and execution of newer technologies was well illustrated by Dr. Basu. 2. Title: NASA Sensors and Instrumentation for Space-based Remote Sensing Applications by Dr. Upendra N Singh On 31st October, the SPIE student chapter and the OSA chapter of IIT Madras jointly organized an invited talk by Dr. Upendra N Singh, NASA Technical Fellow for Sensors and Instrumentation at the NASA Engineering and Safety Center, NASA Langley Research Center. An internationally recognized atmospheric scientist and laser remote sensing expert with 30 years of experience, Dr. Singh is currently serving as Principal Investigator of two Earth Science Technology Office funded programs to enable space-based measurements of Carbon Dioxide and 3-D Winds.
NASA is at fore-front in developing lidar technologies and unique active/passive remote sensing capabilities towards space-based observations for understanding the complexities and interactions among Earth system components. Dr. Singh in his talk, gave an overview of the enabling lidar technologies and techniques from ground and space towards NASA s future vision for Earth science missions for global observations, and the challenges associated in applying them for societal benefit. Dr. Upendra N Singh during the Q&A session Dr. Upendra N Singh and Prof. A.R. Ganesan, Faculty Advisor, SPIE IITM Student chapter
3. Title: Space-Time Duality in Optics by Prof Govind P. Agarwal Prof. Govind P Agarwal during his talk at IITM, Chennai Prof. Govind P. Agrawal from University of Rochester, USA is a distinguished researcher and an expert on nonlinear optics, silicon photonics, and optical communications. The recipient of several awards, Prof. Agarwal briefed upon the concept of space-time duality, a topic known since the 1960s and attracting attention in the recent year. He reviewed the advances in in the context of temporal imaging, focusing the temporal analogue of reflection and refraction of optical pulses in a medium whose refractive index changes across at a temporal boundary. Prof. Agarwal also presented the analogues of total internal reflection and temporal wave-guiding.
4. Title: Photon-Phonon Interactions for High-Capacity Coherent Optical Communications by Dr. Amol Choudhary One of the surprises of nonlinear optics is that light may interact strongly with sound. Intense laser light literally shakes the glass in optical fibers, exciting acoustic waves (sound) in the fiber. Under the right conditions, it leads to a positive feedback loop between light and sound termed Stimulated Brillouin Scattering, or simply SBS. Dr. Amol Choudhary, from the University of Sydney, gave a talk on the topic Photon-Phonon Interactions for High-Capacity Coherent Optical Communications on 5th February 2018. He spoke on how this nonlinear photon-phonon interaction can amplify or filter light waves with precise frequency making it uniquely suited to solve key problems in the fields of defense, biomedicine, wireless communications and recently optical communications. Dr. Choudhary s talk focused on the happenings in this field, reviewing the progress and achievements, especially in the field of optical communications. Dr. Amol Choudhary during his talk on February 5 at IITM, Chennai 4.2 Industrial visits 1. Radio Astronomy Centre (RAC), Ooty The Radio Astronomy Centre (RAC), situated near Udhagamandalam (Ooty) is a part of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) which is funded by the
Government of India through the Department of Atomic Energy. The beautiful surroundings of the Nilgiri Hills provide a stimulating environment for the front-line research in radio astronomy and astrophysics. Radio Astronomy Centre, Ooty Established over 43 years ago, the ORT has produced many important astronomical results on radio galaxies, quasars, supernovae, pulsars, the interstellar and interplanetary media. We visited this centre on 29th April 2017. We were given a tour of the different facilities at RAC, including the Interplanetary Scintillation and the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). Visit to Radio Astronomy Centre, Ooty
2. Raman Research Institute, Bangalore On 27 th October, we visited the Raman Research Institute (RRI), an institute of scientific research in Bangalore. RRI was founded by Nobel laureate C.V. Raman in 1948. The institute has many interesting stories. It began as a privately-owned institute but is now funded by the government of India. The main areas of research at RRI include Astronomy & Astrophysics, Light & Matter Physics, Soft Condensed Matter and Theoretical Physics. Visit to Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore
We visited different labs in this beautiful campus, including the Light & matter Physics (LAMP) division where work is carried out in the area of light-matter interaction as a combination of Atomic, Molecular and Optical (AMO) physics on one hand, and intense laser produced plasmas on the other. The Astronomy & Astrophysics department use highly powered light sources and are involved in the design, construction and operation of telescopes for specific purposes. We also visited the Raman museum, which houses Dr. CV Raman s exquisite collectables. The curator at the museum showed us around and narrated several interesting stories of CV Raman. Raman Research Institute 4.3 School outreach program In December, we organized for a school outreach for the students of Kovillor Matric. Hr. Sec. school in Tamil Nadu. This program was an activity-based teaching of basic optics which we observe in our everyday life. The chosen school was low in laboratory facilities, especially in basic physics. Using the SPIE optical kit, basic light characteristics were explained. The major objective of conducting this school outreach educational program was to create awareness among students about optics and photonics. The enthusiastic participation of the school students was encouraging.
School Outreach program, Kovillor As part of the school outreach program, we continued another activity- vision screening for the school children. This was in collaboration with Frontline hospital.
5. Financial Statement 2017-2018 Details of the Chapter s Bank Account: Name of the Account : IIT Madras SPIE Student Chapter Account No : 34138480114 SWIFT CODE : SBIN001055 Bank : State Bank of India, IIT Madras Branch : IIT Madras, Chennai Transaction details: Expenditure for the period 3 rd April 2017 to 6 th February 2018 S.No Expenditure description Amount ( ) 1 TIFR-RAC LAB VISIT, OOTY (BILLS + VOUCHERS) 23013 2 SPIE CHAPTER MEETING (BILLS) 1136 3 STATIONARIES (BILLS) 1106 4 RRI LAB VISIT (BILLS + VOUCHERS) 15993 5 TALK BY Dr. UPENDRA SING (BILLS) 1710 6 ACCESSORIES PURCHASED (BILLS) 3860 7 SPIE SCHOOL OUTREACH PROGRAMME- KOVILOOR (BILLS) 8247 8 TALK BY Prof. GOVIND. AGRAWAL (BILLS) 1894 9 SPIE CHAPTER BANNER (BILLS) 2200 10 TALK BY Dr. AMOL CHOUDHARY (BILLS) 200 11 VISION SCREENING PROGRAMME- KOVILOOR (BILLS) (FRONTLINE SIGHT CARE HOSPITAL) 38567 Total 97926
Financial status as on February 6 th, 2018 S.No Description Amount ( ) 1 AMOUNT AVAILABLE AS ON 3rd APRIL 2017 2,42,679 2 EXPENDITURES (Ref. EXPENDITURES TABLE) 97,926 3 BALANCE AMOUNT 1,44,753 4 AMOUNT UNUSED WITH TREASURER 641 4 BALANCE AMOUNT IN THE BANK AS ON: February 6 th, 2018 1,44,112 6. Plans for the future Industrial / Lab visits The following Labs / Industries are proposed by the chapter members. Solar Observatory, Kodaikanal, Tamilnadu Photonics Department CUSAT Holmarc Optomechatronics Pvt. Ltd, Cochin, Kerala. Applied Photonics Laboratory, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Invited talks The exact details of the talks are to be fixed depending on the availability of speakers. We hope to have more than 5 talks this year. School outreach programs Vision screening for schools from underprivileged back grounds For these two programs, the chapter members have pointed out that it should be done in schools from under privileged backgrounds. When we look for such schools, we will have to go a bit far away from our locality, which makes it rather challenging. However we plan to cover at least four such schools.