Crucial problems of optics and photonics

The Eighth International Conference on “Fundamental Problems of Optics” (FPO-2014) was held in St. Petersburg from October 20 to 24, 2014. The main organizer of the conference was ITMO University, and the participants in the conference included the D. S. Rozhdestvenskiı˘ Optical Society, AO S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute, the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, and other organizations. The goal of the conference traditionally was to recognize established researchers, as well as students, holders of bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and graduate students from not only Russia but also foreign countries both nearby and more remote, with fundamental advances and development trends in optics and spectroscopy, photonics and optoinformatics, and innovations in optical science and engineering. The conference included the following main sections: “Coherent interaction processes of light with matter,” “Quantum optics and fundamental spectroscopy,” and “Optical materials of photonics,” which covered three quarters of all the reports that were presented. There were also sections on “New principles of optical information transport, processing, and storage”; “Optics of femto- and attosecond pulses”; and “Optics for biology and medicine,” a seminar on “Terahertz optics and spectroscopy,” and a lecture by Academician Yu. N. Denisyuk.
The largest number of reports were presented in the seven sections of “Optical materials of photonics,” in which the greatest attention was devoted to new laser materials such as nanoglass–ceramic, organic microlasers, photonic-crystal structures, structures with nanoinclusions, and the materials of silicon photonics. The sections of “Quantum optics and fundamental spectroscopy” included discussions of both traditional problems of spectroscopy and the spectral features of photonic structures and metamaterials; various reports were presented on quantum informatics. The sections of “Coherent interaction processes of light with matter” involved discussions of the coherent interaction of light with semiconductor structures, the recording of holograms in various media, and many other questions. In all, more than 500 scientists took part in the work of the conference, about 350 oral and poster reports were delivered, and more than 80 invited reports were given. It should be pointed out that more than 75% of the participants were young scientists. Some of the most interesting reports delivered at the conference are presented in this topical issue. The program and the transactions of the proceedings of the FPO-2014 conference are presented in greater detail on the site http://conf‑bpo.ifmo.ru/. The Ninth International Conference “Fundamental Problems of Optics-2016” will be held in St. Petersburg in 2016.