PECS-VIII
April 5-9, 2009
Sydney, Australia
Ben Eggleton, Director
CUDOS, The University of Sydney

Past PECS

Future PECS

History of PECS

PECS came into being as a result of three very successful NATO conferences, organized by C. M. Soukoulis and colleagues. The first conference was a NATO ARW entitled, "Localization and Propagation of Classical Waves in Random and Periodic Structures," Crete, Greece, May 26-30, 1992. The second conference was a NATO ASI entitled "Photonic Band Gap Materials," Elounda, Crete, Greece, June 19-30, 1995. Five years later, the third NATO ASI entitled, "Photonic Crystals and Light Localization," Limin Hersonissou, Crete, Greece, June 19-30, 2000.
Each conference was well attended, where world renown scientists met to present and discuss their research. The volumes that resulted from each conferenceon photonic crystals and light localization have become classics. The books are

  • Photonic Band Gaps and Localization, Plenum Publishers (1993).
  • Photonic Band Gap Materials, Kluwer Publishers (1996).
  • Photonic Crystals and Light Localization in the 21st Century, Kluwer Publishers (2001)

    • PECS Objectives

    Photonic and electromagnetic crystals offer unprecedented control of photons and have emerged as an important new class of optical materials. Continued developments in the analysis and calculation of photonic crystals, as well as rapid advances in nano-fabrication techniques, have enabled us to design and prototype ever more intricate and functional photonic crystal structures and devices. Novel photonic nanostructure devices such as ultrasmall channel add/drop filtering devices, new type of lasers and photonic fibers are developing rapidly. Construction of fully three dimensional photonic crystals continues to be an important aim for the development of photonic chips.

    Over the past several years, even more exciting opportunities have arisen from the study of periodic structures. Metamaterials have offered a wealth of new phenomena, including negative refractive index, superlensing and cloaking. Slowing or even stopping light inside of photonic crystals is also being investigated.

    Materials for fabricating photonic crystals are also expanding into all classes: organic, metallic, ceramic, magnetic, and dielectric. Combination of desirable properties and phenomena, such as nonlinearity and luminescence, from a wide variety of materials promises to bring about new and exciting applications. In PECS-VII, we hope to review the significant advances in the field and discuss future directions of photonic crystal research.