Duke Physics graduate student Joel Greenberg attended the 19th annual International Laser Physics Workshop in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, this month. Here’s what he had to say about it: The conference ran from July 5 – 9, 2010, and had nine different sessions dealing with optics-related material. I presented an invited talk entitled “Super-charging nonlinear optical processes through collective effects”on July 6 as part of the session on “Modern Trends in Laser Physics.” Also in attendance were Marcos Oriá and Martine Chevrollier, who are AMO (atomic, molecular, and optical) physicists at the Universidade Federal da Paraíba and former Duke scientists. During 2006-2007, Marcos and Martine spent their 18 month sabbaticals working in Prof. Dan Gauthier and Prof. John Thomas’ labs, respectively, and Marcos was instrumental in building the original setup at the core of the talk that I gave. Despite the conference’s truly international participant list, the relatively small number of participants (540) and the fact that most people stayed and dined at the conference hotel gave the event a very small and social feel that made introductions and interactions as simple as pulling up a chair next to a fellow physicist at the hotel restaurant. The conference hotel, the Hotel Carima, is a few miles outside of the Foz do Iguaçu downtown, which lies on the border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. In addition to some of the typical American hotel offerings (such as a pool and tennis courts), the Hotel Carima had a surprising amount of on-site wildlife (including free-range peacocks and the ‘ihla dos macacos,’ or ‘monkey island’). Read Part 2 of this story here. You can view photos from Joel's trip here.
Department of Physics
