nanophotonics pick

The Master for Photonics Engineering, Nanophotonics and Biophotonics merging top universities in Marseille, Karlsruhe and Barcelona is seeking excellent students candidates of European Union nationality. 8 positions are offered, with a grant up to 10 000 € / year. See the link.

- State-of-the-art teaching on modern photonics

- Prestigious Erasmus Mundus program

- Up to 10 000 € / year scholarship

- International culture exchange among students (20 students: 8 from EU and 12 non-EU).

- Boiling student ambiances of Marseille, Karlsruhe and Barcelona

(c) Jorge Cham, phdcomics.com

The Master for Photonics Engineering, Nanophotonics and Biophotonics aims at giving an extensive two-year teaching program from fundamentals to advanced research topics in Photonics and its interdisciplinary applications.

The application for European Union students is currently open. See the link here.

What are the advantages of this program ?

• state-of-the-art teaching on truly modern photonics (not 19th century physics)
• prestigious Erasmus Mundus EU program 
• Up to 10 000 € / year scholarship
• International culture exchange among students (20 students selected, 8 from EU and 12 non-EU).
• Experience the boiling student ambiances of Marseille, Karlsruhe and Barcelona

In one sentence : get best teaching, money & warm atmosphere. What do you expect more ? Apply NOW !

(I wish I had such an opportunity while I was student in the gloomy Paris suburbs...)

The Fresnel Institute at the University of Marseilles (http://www.fresnel.fr), a leading laboratory in the field of Optics, Electromagnetism and Image Processing invites applications for an Associate Professor level position in the field of Biophotonics.

Outstanding candidates with demonstrated excellence in basic research in linear and nonlinear optical microscopy will have high priority. Expertise in nanoparticles fabrication and/or bio-labelling, optical field enhancement with nanostructure for bio-detection will be appreciated. Responsibilities will include conducting basic laboratory research in the Mosaic group http://www.fresnel.fr/mosaic) together with teaching (in French) at undergraduate and graduate levels at the University of Marseilles (Université de Provence) .

More information following this link.

“Imaging chromophores with undetectable fluorescence by stimulated emission microscopy”, Wei Min, Sijia Lu, Shasha Chong, Rahul Roy, Gary R. Holto,  X. Sunney Xie, Nature 461, 1105-1109 (2009)

Fluorescence, that is, spontaneous emission, is generally more sensitive than absorption measurement, and is widely used in optical imaging. However, many chromophores, such as haemoglobin and cytochromes, absorb but have undetectable fluorescence because the spontaneous emission is dominated by their fast non-radiative decay. Yet the detection of their absorption is difficult under a microscope. Here we use stimulated emission, which competes effectively with the nonradiative decay, to make the chromophores detectable...

« Optical Antennas », Palash Bharadwaj, Bradley Deutsch, and Lukas Novotny, Advances in Optics and Photonics 1, 438–483 (2009) doi:10.1364/AOP.1.000438

Optical antennas are an emerging concept in physical optics. Similar to radiowave and microwave antennas, their purpose is to convert the energy of free propagating radiation to localized energy, and vice versa...

« Photonic Nanojets », Alexander Heifetz, Soon-Cheol Kong, Alan V. Sahakian, Allen Taflove, and Vadim Backman, Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience 6, 1979–1992 (2009).