Photonics Chapter
Welcome to the IEEE UK and Ireland Photonics Chapter.
The UK and Ireland Photonics Society is a sub-chapter of the Photonics Society of the IEEE, whose field of interest is in lasers, optical and photonic devices, optical fibres and associated lightwave technology, and their systems and applications. The Society is concerned with transforming the science of materials, optical phenomena, and quantum electronic devices into the design, development, and manufacture of photonic technologies.
We promote and co-operate in the educational and technical activities which contribute to the useful expansion of the field of quantum optoelectronics and applications.
Bridging societies
Photonics represents an emerging technology field that will provide crucial advancements to many key sectors including communication, medicine, automotive, computing, lighting, sensors, renewable energy and defense. The UK and Ireland are well placed to exploit photonics in order to enhance our collective ability to compete on the global stage in this increasingly relevant and competitive field.
We continue this joint society in the spirit of international scientific partnership, which must endure.
The Chapter maintains a UK and Ireland Photonics website where more details can be found.
Chapter Committee
Richard Pitwon currently leads the photonics advanced development group at Seagate Systems responsible for design and development of advanced embedded photonic interconnect solutions for future Cloud and Exascale data centre architectures and manager of international collaborative R&D programmes.
He is a Senior member of the IEEE, Fellow of the IET (FIET) and Chartered Engineer (CEng) with over 17 years’ experience in advanced photonic interconnect, system architecture and integration. He holds 50 patents and has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications including journals, conference proceedings, book chapters and international standards and given over 60 talks and guest lectures at international conferences and universities.
He is the Chair elect of the IEC international standards subcommittee on fibre optic interconnecting devices and passive components (SC86B) as well as the secretary of IEC optical circuit boards standards group and principal UK expert on international standards groups (IEC / BSI) for optical interconnect, photonic integrated circuits and electronic assembly.
Filipe Ferreira received the PhD degree in electrical engineering from the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Coimbra, Portugal in 2014 for his work on high capacity optical transmission systems based on mode division multiplexing.
He previously worked for the optical networks research & technology division of Coriant (former Nokia Siemens Networks) as a Research Engineer. During that period, he led activities in the EU-FP7 research project MODEGAP, including few-mode fibres nonlinear modelling and profile design, advanced optical links design and simulation.
He is now a Research Fellow at Aston University leading the development of new cost-reduced approaches to high capacity optical networks under the EU-FP7 research project INSPACE.
Recently, he was awarded a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship to carry out research on space division multiplexing at Aston University.
Akhil Kallepalli is a researcher, currently pursuing his PhD in optical imaging and laser systems applications at the Centre for Electronics Warfare, Information and Cyber, Cranfield University, Shrivenham, at the Defence Academy of the UK.
His primary focus is on remotely sensing biophysical and medically relevant characteristics using lasers and imaging systems.
He obtained his B. Tech. (Geoinformatics Engineering) degree from Andhra University (2012) and MSc (Geo-information Science and Earth Observation) degree through a joint program of Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, India and ITC, University of Twente, The Netherlands (2014).
His current research interests include biomedical applications of lasers and hyperspectral image processing.
Upcoming Events
Watch Again | Horizons of Optical, Photonics and Emerging Sciences (HOPES): Present Trends and the Future of Silicon Photonics
For the first event of the HOPES seminar series of 2023, we welcomed Prof Graham Reed from the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) of the University of Southampton to discuss the Present Trends and the Future of Silicon Photonics.
In Memoriam | Mehmet Aytun Erdentug
It is with deep sadness that the IEEE UK and Ireland Photonics Chapter announce the death of Mehmet Aytun Erdentug on 1st March 2023.
Son et Lumiere | Music Transmission with Light and Mirrors – a DIY Guide
The newly formed IEEE photonics society branch at City, University of London has been very busy over the past few months with a series of photonics "Hackathons", which involve interesting, interactive and very easy to do experiments to demonstrate the wonders of photonics and inspire school pupils and undergraduates alike.
Photonics Chapter Launches Horizons of Optics, Photonics and Emerging Sciences (HOPES) Webinar Series
With this series, the IEEE UK and Ireland Photonics Chapter is taking a different approach to seminal webinars. Instead of focussing on a single piece of research and/or innovation, we invite highly impactful researchers to discuss the future of their research domains. This will allow the speaker to share their informed view of future innovations on a platform that encourages a true exchange for shaping the evolution of science.