Traveling Lecturer Spotlight: Christos Argyropoulos
From the 24-27 April, I had the opportunity to make three presentations at the Workshop on Optics and Photonics (TOPFOT) in beautiful Neuquen, Argentina. TOPFOT is an annual meeting organized by the Argentina Network of Optics and Photonics Laboratories, which is composed of approximately 300 researchers, professionals, technicians and fellows, distributed throughout the country. During the workshop, I presented one talk that focused on the history of metamaterials, which are artificially constructed materials and one of my main research interests. The second talk explored the extension of these concepts to optical frequencies and especially, the new research area of nanophotonics, also known as plasmonics. Finally, my third talk was more specialized and focused on energy harvesting applications of plasmonic and metamaterial devices. I am very grateful toward the local organizers and especially Dr. Fernando Perez Quintián, who was the head of the local organizing committee and was therefore instrumental in my attendance at the conference. I would also like to extent special thanks to Dr. Marcos Soldera, who is a Junior Professor at the host organizing university and who kindly hosted me while I was in Neuquen. My visit was made possible through the OSA Travelling Lecturer Program and I would certainly recommend that other researchers and colleagues take advantage of this excellent educational program if they are given the opportunity.
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