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Photon04 is the third in a biennial series of events that began in 2000 and has grown to become the UK's largest optics research meeting. Photon04 is a set of co-located meetings, including the Institute of Physics conferences Optics and Photonics 2004 and Quantum Electronics and Photonics QEP-16, plus an exhibition, and the Industry Technology Programme. Photon04 is organized by the UK Consortium for Photonics and Optics (UKCPO), whose members comprise all organizations that represent the UK's optics community, whether learned societies, professional institutions, trade associations or regional special interest groups. In hosting the Photon series it has been the objective of the UKCPO to provide a single forum for UK optics.Photon04 was held at Glasgow Caledonian University on 6–9 September 2004, and was attended by nearly 500 people. Although attendance was predominantly from the UK, 27 different countries were represented. Within the science programme, over 300 papers were presented. The purpose of this special issue is to present a representative selection of the research reported at Photon04, principally from Optics and Photonics 2004, which is the conference of the Optics and Photonics Division of the Institute of Physics. Optics and Photonics 2004 consisted of contributions from the subject groups that make up the Division, notably the Optical Group, the Instrument Science and Technology Group and the Fringe Analysis Special Interest Group (FASIG).It would be difficult in only a few words to give more than a very general impression of the breadth of the conference, but a number of themes emerge. In this issue, from thirty papers, over twenty are concerned with various kinds of optical instrumentation. Whilst instrumentation has always been a very important application of optics, the purposes to which that instrumentation is put are beginning to evolve, with uses in the life sciences and in environmental monitoring continuing to grow. Techniques which are intrinsically optical, such as spectroscopy and various forms of imaging (including full-field interferometry) continue to be important, but increasingly optical techniques are competing in areas formerly the preserve of electronic and electrical techniques—notably in the exploitation of fibre-optic technology, e.g. for strain sensing. Advances in optical instrumentation are dependent on the enabling technologies of new sources, detectors and materials. There were several sessions at the conference devoted to novel materials, with an emphasis on the role of microstructure, not only in the familiar area of diffractive optics but in new metamaterials, such as photonic crystals. The conference has always interpreted the range of frequencies implied by the word `optics' broadly, and on this occasion included that part of the electromagnetic spectrum extending from x-rays to the THz frontier.I hope that the papers in this issue will serve not only as a permanent record of Photon04, but will also stimulate readers to contribute to and attend Photon06 for which plans are already well advanced for an event to be held at the University of Manchester, on 3–6 September 2006. |
