International Cooperation

Sub-i :

Prof. Pan and other faculty of NCTU have successfully initiated the joint Ph.D. program in Photonics between NCTU and University of Maryland, Baltimore County. A joint M.S. and Engineer degree program between NCTU and University of Paris XI in photonics (Optronics) have also been signed.

Following is a partial list of activities:

1.            Industrial Research Limted (IRL), Auckland, New Zealand

IRL is an independent research organization sponsored mainly by the government of New Zealand. Its mission is similar to that of ITRI. The topic is THz acouostic spectroscopy. The objective of this program is to conduct research on a novel THz-acoustic spectroscopy technique that extends conventional 2D THz spectroscopy beyond the surface boundary.  The ultimate goal is to create a 3D material composition image by capturing the spectroscopic information of objects embedded inside a complex medium. Dr. K. L. Chan of IRL visited NCTU for 10 days in December 2006 and conduct preliminary experiments in our laboratories. Inititial results are promising. A joint proposal has been submitted to New Zealand authorities.

2.          Osaka University

Profs. Ci-Ling Pan and Ru-Pin Pan has initiated collaboration with Profs. Hangyo and Tani of the Institute of Laser Engineering on a variety of subjects, include broadband THz antennas, THz photonic crystals and THz emission studies of ferroelectric liquid crystals.  A Ph.D. student, Mr. Cho-Fan Hsieh will spend a year at Osaka University to conduct research starting in July 2008.

3.          Ph.D. students were accepted to conduct research up to a year at esteemed institutions such as UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, RPI, and University of Maryland.

4.          Chinese University Hong Kong

Mr. K. C. Chen, a Ph.D. student of CUHK, visited the lab of Prof. Ci-Ling Pan for about a month and conducted joint experiment.  A conference paper resulted from this visit. The first topic is CW THz generation using oxygen-implanted GaAs.  Later on, Prof. Pan took his sabbatical leave at CUHK and initiated collaboration activities.

5.          Institute of Radio Engineering an Electronics, Russian Academy of Science

The groups of Profs. Ru-Pin Chan Pan and Ci-Ling Pan are collaborating with the group of Prof. Dr. V. Meriakri and his collaborators. The general aim of this project is to pursue the dielectric properties of a homologous serious of nematic liquid crystals in the millimeter and sub-millimeter (THz) wavelength range. NCTU is responsible for studies in the sub-millimeter wavelength range, while the Russian team is responsible for similar studies in the longer wavelengths (microwave and millimeter wave).

6.          IFIPS Optronique, Université Paris XI

Prof. Ci-Ling Pan hosted three French intern students, Sébastien Avila, Génel Farcy, and Arnaud Lacronix, from the Institut de Formation d/Ingenierus, Universite Paris-Sud XI. They stayed for five months and each finished a term project.

7.          Many international scholars visit our team and the scholar exchange have been very useful. These include Profs. K. T. Chan (CUHK), Tsing Hua Her (UNC), Chi H. Lee (Maryland), and Hideo Takezoe (Tokyo Inst. Of Technol.).

8.          Our GaN nanophotonics group has been collaborating with Professor Yamamoto of Stanford University during past several years, and will collaborate on the microcavity QD GaN-based VCSEL device development and controlled photon emission experiment. We believe a room temperature operating GaN-based mesoscopic GaN quantum confined structures with controllable photon emission can be realized under this project.

Prof. S. C. Wang visited TIT Prof. K. Iga for collaboration of GaN materials

Prof. C.L. Lin form CUHK (Hong Kong) visit us for discussion on QDs Laser

Prof. S. L. Chuang from UIUC for QD VCSEL slow light

Prof. M. Feng from UIUC for LW – Photo detector and Transistor Laser

Prof. Connie Chang from UC Berkley – injection locking on VCSEL

Prof. H.C. Kuo visited Hong Kong University of Science and Technology for collaboration of GaN nanotechnology

Prof. S.C. Wang, H.C. Kuo and T. C. Lu visited Professor Yamamoto of Stanford Jan. 2006 during Photonics West 2006 (San Jose) to discuss collaboration of GaN based nanostructures in high Q micro-cavity.

Sub-ii :

Optical Communication:

•    Prof. J. Chen cooperated with Prof. Y.R. (Ray) Chen in the Department of Electrical Engineering at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) on the development of PLC OADM module.

•    Prof. J. Chen and Prof. S. Chi cooperated with Prof. G.K. Chang in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) on the development of bi-directional fiber transmission and other new optical transmission/networking techniques.

Optical Storage:

•    Prof. C. H. Tien cooperated with Prof. Ed. Schlesinger in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University on the demonstration of the proposed dual fiber-based near-field optical head in the spin stand.

•    Prof. W. Hsu cooperated with the Laser Micromachining group at Canada NRC Integrated Manufacture Technology Institute on the development of the micro actuators.

Sub-iii :

1.  Prof. C. C. Chen (陳啟昌) is invited by Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena(Germany) as a visiting reseracher (June-Sep 2005) (support by NSC) to photonic crystal waveguides.

2.  Prof. C. C. Chen (陳啟昌) is invited by Université Paris 13 (France) as a visiting professor during July 2006 (support by Université Paris 13) to develop organic blue laser.

3.  S. S. Lo (羅仕守), post-doctoral fellow of Prof. Chii-Chang Chen (陳啟昌, NCU), received the grant from NSC (PPP計畫) as a visiting researcher in Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena (Germany) to study the novel solar cell structures using photonic crstyal. (2006/3-2006/6). The result from this collaboration has been accepted to be published in J. Phys. D.

4.  Dual-diploma program(國際合作雙學位): F. L. Hsiao (蕭輔力), Ph. D. student of Prof. Chii-Chang Chen (陳啟昌, NCU) received the scholarships from National Science Council and France Scholarship for dual-diploma program with Université de Franche-Comté(國科會菁英留學獎學金與法國政府獎學金). The two results about phononic crystals have been poblished in J. Appl. Phys. and Physical Review E.

5.  Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena (Germany) send a diploma student (Reinhard Geiss) to National Central University on 8 Jan 2007 for 2 months, under the group of Prof. Chii-Chang Chen (陳啟昌, NCU), to study the photonic crsytal LiNbO₃ laser.

6.  Prof. C. C. Chen (陳啟昌) is invited by Université Paris 13 (France) as a visiting professor during July 2007 (support by Université Paris 13) to develop organic blue laser.

7.  Prof. C. C. Chen (陳啟昌) is invited by Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena(Germany) as a visiting reseracher (Aug. 2007) (support by NSC) to study photonic crystal waveguides.

8.  Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena (Germany) send two diploma students (Matthias Schneemann and Anna Heidt) to National Central University on 1 Jan 2008 for 2 months, under the group of Prof. Chii-Chang Chen (陳啟昌, NCU), to study the photonic crsytal solar cells.

Sub-iv :

1.      The 9^th International Conference on Optics Within Life Sciences (OWLS9), held at NYMU from 11/26/2006 through 11/29/2006 was attended by more than 60 foreign participants and about 200 local participants. In addition to the three plenary lectures by Prof. Jim Fujimoto (MIT, a pioneer in Optical Coherence Tomography), Prof. Briton Chance, (U. Penn, the Father of Biophotonics), and Prof. P. N. Prasad, (Chair Professor, SUNY, USA; a pioneer in nano-biophotonics), about 30 invited papers were presented by pioneers in Biophotonics from all over the world, including 10 from Taiwan. The conference was a great success, and the high technical quality of the papers was unanimously praised by all the participants. Because of the tremendous success of OWLS9, we are invited to host the International Conference on Laser Applications in Life Sciences in Dec. 2008 (www.LALS2008.tw).

2.      Prof. Yunlong Shen (Physics Department, Laval University, Quebec, Canada) and Paul Beriel, his graduate student visited us for 2 weeks (12/09 through 12/22 2006) and 4 weeks (11/02 through 11/30 2006), respectively, to work on the theoretical modeling of cellular morphological deformation in an optical stretcher. Two conference papers and three journal papers have been published through this collaborative project. Prof. Sheng was here visiting NYMU again from 02/18 through 03/14, 2008, to further develop the mathematical model for optical trapping and stretching.

3.      Min Tzo Wei, a student from Arthur Chiou’s Lab spent 3 months at Lehigh University in 2005 to work under the supervision of Prof. Danniel Ouyang, Physics Department, Lehigh University. A joint publication entitled “A comparative study of living cell micromechanical properties by oscillatory optical tweezers” has been submitted to Optics Express.

4.      Our Proposal (PI: Arthur Chiou, Taiwan; and Chailakhyan Levon Mikhailovich, Head of Laboratory in the Institute of the Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Russian of Academy of Sciences, Russia) to NSC for a three-year Taiwan/Russian Collaborative Research Project entitled “Novel techniques for mammalian embryos reconstruction via noninvasive laser manipulation to obtain embryonic stem cells with a particular genome for the purpose of substituting cell therapy” has been funded for 10/2006 through 09/2008.

5.      Arthur Chiou, the PI of Subproject IV, has been invited to the following international activities.

  a.         One of the 10 invited lecturers in the Winter School of Biophotonics (02/24/2007 through 03/02/2007) to give a 3-hour lecture on Optical Trapping and Manipulation for Biomedical Applications.

  b.         Member of the Editorial Board, “Handbook of Biophotonics” to be published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co in 2008.

  c.         Member of the Editorial Board, “Journal of Biophotonics” launched by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co in January 2008.

6.      Miss Yu-Shang Huang, a graduate student from A. Chiou’s lab has spent 30 days to work with Prof. Amy Sung, (Bio-Engineering department, UCSD, California) on the molecular basis of red blood cells in the summer of 2007.

7.      Arthur Chiou attended The International Congress on Biophotonics (ICOB), organized by the NSF’s CBST (Center of Biophotonics Science and Technology), held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Sacramento, California from 02/04 through 02/07 2008. The major objective of this event is to connect scientists developing biophotonics technology with end-users in the fields of biosciences and medicine in order to create a strategic road map for the future of biophotonics. He was invited to serve as a member of the International Organizing Committee during the planning of this meeting and also participate as one of the panel members in a panel discussion session on Biomedical Sensing, and a Chair of one of the writing groups on Advanced Micro-imaging.

These international activities will definitely help not only to promote the local biophotonics R&D knowledgebase, human resources, and infrastructures in Taiwan, but also to put Taiwan on the map in the world of Biophotonics Science and Technology.