Previously, the METANANO conference was organized every year by the staff of the The Mediterranean Institute of Fundamental Physics (MIFP), Italy. The conference's founder, MIFP's head Alexei Kavokin supported ITMO's proposal to organize the conference in Anapa after its Department of Nanophotonics and Metamaterials won a grant from Russia's Scientific Fund for conducting the conference in Russia.
"The event was organized mostly by ITMO's staff. Many speakers that are to participate in the conference are from our university, as well. Last year, the event was hosted in Cuba, this year it's in Kuban: both here and there the participants get a chance to enjoy a resort town's culture. This year - with Russia's most sunny town", - comments the head of Department of Nanophotonics and Metamaterials, the conference's chair, Pavel Belov.
The conference will go till September 9. During the conference, more than a hundred reports will be made on such topics as functional metamaterials, dielectric nanophotonics, hyperbolical metamaterials, photonic topological insulators. The scientists will also share their latest results in research of topological properties of metamaterials, research of graphene and other leading fields. All in all, more than 70 young scientists from 13 countries will participate in METANANO. The speakers will include renowned scientists such as Filippo Capolino (University of California, USA), Karsten Rokshtul (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Anatole Lupu (Universite Paris-Sud, France), Alexander Hanikaev (Queens College, USA), Anvar Zahidov (University of Texas at Dallas), Konstantine Simovsky (Aalto University, Finland) and many others.
A lot of reports will be about one of the most fast-developing fields - topological effects. Mario Silverinya's (from Lisbon University) report will be on a series of his works on the possibilities of realization of topological effects in continuous systems.
"We generally assume that all systems with topological effects are periodical. In them, the effective impulse can be defined within the accuracy of a particular value that is reciprocal to the structure’s period. For a long time, we believed that indeterminateness of impulse is something that we can't avoid. What Mario is talking about is amazing, as working with continuous systems is much easier. Also, we're looking forward to the report of Andrei Rubzov's from Russian Quantum Center. He will talk about using superconductors and nanostructures in quantum computations. There are actually few systems that can be used for making such calculations, for instance, cold gases and diluted atoms. Creating a computer based on this technology will be fantastic. Another unusual report is that of Andrei Lavrienko from the Dutch Technological University. He spoke about the theoretical solutions of problems related to plasmonics by using a different bandwidth of light" - comments Ivan Iorsh, METANANO's co-chair.
He added that during the event, ITMO University hopes to negotiate on collaboration with Vladimir Kulakovski's team from the Institute for Solid State Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences. This might be the only team in Russia that can do experimental research on microresonators with exciton polaritons. These systems allow us to get lots of fundamental effects that were formerly possible only in cold atoms. By using them, it is possible to create new lasers and means of optical processing that will work effectively in room temperature.
Other important contacts are also to be established during the conference. That aside, METANANO-2016 will also contribute to the growth of ITMO's and Russia’s other scientific establishment's international positioning.
