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PAIR Distinguished Lecture by Prof. Philip RUSSELL on ‘Three decades riding the photonic crystal fibre wave'

PAIR Distinguished Lecture Series

20241105RecapPRIDL by Prof Philip RUSSELL 1000 x 540 pxEN
  • Date

    05 Nov 2024

  • Organiser

    PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research

  • Time

    10:45 - 12:15

  • Venue

    Senate Room, M1603, 16/F Li Ka Shing Tower, PolyU (Limited seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis)  

Speaker

Prof. Philip RUSSELL

Summary

Prof. Philip RUSSELL, Scientific Director of the Russell Centre for Advanced Lightwave Science (RCALS), Hangzhou, China, delivered the 30th PAIR Distinguished Lecture titled “Three decades riding the photonic crystal fibre wave” on 5 November 2024 on the PolyU campus. The lecture attracted over 80 participants to join in person and captivated an online viewing audience of over 12,500 from different countries and regions to watch the live broadcast on multiple social media platforms, including Bilibili, WeChat, Weibo and YouTube.

The lecture commenced with a warm welcome and brief speaker introduction by Prof. CHEN Qingyan, Director of PAIR. Prof. Russell kickstarted his presentation by giving a brief overview of the historical development of photonic crystal fibre (PCF), highlighting how advancements in optical fibres, Bragg scattering, photonic bandgaps and drawing towers laid the foundation for PCF breakthroughs. Prof. Russell shared that he proposed in 1991 a glass fibre with a periodic array of microscopic hollow channels running along its length might guide light in novel ways, and many PCFs emerged from drawing towers at universities in subsequent years. Next, he elaborated on the advantages of PCF, explaining how it offers enhanced control over the propagation light, and how this property has enabled valuable applications. He shared his research in light-guiding PCF, hollow core PCF filled with gas, and twisted PCF, reviewing how some of the scientific discoveries made possible by PCF have evolved into real-world applications.

Following the presentation was a lively and insightful question-and-answer session moderated by Prof. LU Chao, Director of the Photonics Research Institute (PRI) and Chair Professor of Fiber Optics. The audience engaged in a productive discussion with Prof. Russell. 

Please click here for an online review.

Prof RUSSEL 560 x 860

Prof. Philip RUSSELL

Scientific Director of Russell Centre for Advanced Lightwave Science, Hangzhou, China
Emeritus Director of Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen, Germany
Krupp Chair in Experimental Physics, The University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany

 

Prof. Philip Russell obtained his doctorate in 1979 at the University of Oxford, thereafter working at the universities of Hamburg-Harburg, Nice, Southampton, Kent and Bath, as well as at the IBM Watson Research Center in New York. From October 2005 to March 2021 he held the Krupp Chair in Experimental Physics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and in 2009 he co-founded the Max-Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL). In June 2016 he received an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo in Santander, Spain. Following his retirement as MPL director, in April 2024 he became scientific director of the RCALS Centre for Advanced Lightwave Science in Hangzhou, China. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and Optica (formerly The Optical Society, OSA), a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and has won a number of awards including the 2000 OSA Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize, the 2002 Applied Optics Division Prize and the 2005 Thomas Young Prize of the Institute of Physics (London), the 2005 Körber Prize for European Science, the 2013 EPS Prize for Research into the Science of Light, the 2014 Berthold Leibinger Zukunftspreis, the 2015 IEEE Photonics Award and the 2018 Rank Prize for Optoelectronics. He was OSA's President in 2015, the International Year of Light.

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