Abstract
OMS'07 was the 2nd Topical Meeting of the European Optical Society (EOS) on Optical Microsystems (OMS). It was organized by the EOS in the frame of its international topical meeting activity, and after the success of the inaugural meeting was once again held in Italy, 30 September to 3 October 2007, amidst the wonderful scenery of the Island of Capri.
The local organizing committee was composed of researchers from `La Sapienza' University in Rome and the National Council of Research (CNR) in Naples, Italy. A selected group of leading scientists in the field formed the international scientific committee.
The conference was fully dedicated to the most recent advancements carried out in the field of optical microsystems. More then 150 scientists coming from five continents attended the conference and more than 100 papers were presented, organized into the following sessions:
Photonic cystals and metamaterials
Optofluidic microsystems and devices
Optical microsystems and devices
New characterization methods for materials and devices
Application of optical systems
Optical sources and photodetectors
Optical resonators
Nonlinear optic devices
Micro-optical devices.
Four keynote lecturers were invited for the Plenary sessions: Federico Capasso, Harvard University, USA; Bahram Javidi, University of Connecticut, USA (Distinguished Lecturer, Emeritus of LEOS--IEEE Society); Demetri Psaltis, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland; Ammon Yariv, California Institute of Technology, USA. Furthermore, 21 invited speakers opened each session of the conference with their talks.
In addition a special session was organized to celebrate eighty years of the Isituto Nazionale di Ottica Applicata (INOA) of CNR. The special invited speaker for this session was Professor Theodor W Hänsch (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2005), who gave a lecture entitled `What can we do with optical frequency combs?'
In this special issue of Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, a selection of the most interesting papers presented at OMS'07 has been collected, reporting progress in the different aspects of microsystems design, production, characterization and application. The papers embrace most of the various topics that were debated during the conference.
Abstracts for the presentations given at the conference can be found on the OMS'07 website at http://www.inoa.it/oms07/.
We would like to thank all the members of the scientific and industrial committees of OMS'07 for the high scientific content of the meeting, the European Optical Society for the irreplaceable support given to the conference organization and the editorial staff at Journal of Optics A for the invaluable work done in preparing the special issue.