12/3/2020
The eighth Asia Pacific Conference on Optical Sensors (APOS) was held in Auckland over the 19-22 November in 2019. This conference bought together 175 Asian and Pacific researchers with a focus on optical sensing.The APOS plenary speakers presented talks of relevance to the DWC cohort. Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem (University of Adelaide) highlighted the achievements of her laboratory’s research into adapting the properties of optical fibres using physical and chemical mechanisms to sensing, and how her laboratory has collaborated successfully with industry. Kentaro Nakamura (Tokyo Institute of Technology) described his laboratory’s studies into acousto-optic effects and how to use optics to spatially measure sound pressure levels in air as well as to improve optical coherence tomography swept source and scanning systems. Helen Pask (Macquaire University) outlined her laboratory’s use of Raman spectroscopy to remotely measure subsurface water temperature, the potential applications of which are easy to see as ocean temperature monitoring is becoming increasingly important.
The invited speakers continued the trend of varied and interesting talks; the topics extended from passive resonant optical gyroscopes to monitoring malaria and integrated photonic nanostructures, with one-shot 3D imaging in between. DWC’s own Neil Broderick described his forays into the field with Kasper van Wijk, James Loveday, and other national and international scientists interested in studying NZ’s alpine fault pre-earthquake. Not to buck the trend the contributed talks and posters also displayed a wide range high quality research. The most nationally appropriate research had to be the two-dimensional strain sensor based on opal presented by Judith Dawes of Macquarie University.
A third of conference attendees were students; all of whom were eligible for eight student awards from the Optical Society of America. Further, two student awards were available to Australian Optical Society members. Across these 10 student prizes DWC was well represented: Farhan Azeem (UoO), Jonathan Simpson (UoA) and Fang Ou (UoA) all received prizes.
“APOS was a great experience. I had the opportunity to take a more active part in the running of the conference and had my first experience of being chair for one of the sessions. At the conference I also had the chance to engage with other researchers working on optical sensing, which was a great learning experience.” – Fang Ou
“APOS 2019 was a great opportunity to learn about the world-class research being undertaken in optical sensing and discuss my research with international attendees. I particularly enjoyed the presentations related to optical sensing for geophysical applications and gained several ideas to apply to my research.” – Jonathan Simpson 
“APOS 2019 provided me with an excellent opportunity to showcase my PhD research. It allowed me to interact with pioneers in the field of optical sensing. Moreover, the talk given by Dr. Kristen Maitland about detection of pulmonary tuberculosis was very interesting.” – Farhan Azeem
APOS 2019 was capped off with lab tours through the photoacoustic laboratory, the Photon Factory and the biophotonics laboratory. This was a highlight for several of our conference attendees and many were impressed with the work occurring within these laboratories. Further, these lab tours generated interest in the Dodd-Walls Centre, its aims, and who Dodd and Walls were.
