CSIR Student Chapter Annual Report 2011 The chapter leaders for 2011 were: President: Darryl Naidoo (3278136 dnaidoo3@csir.co.za) Vice President: Angela Dudley (3225784 adudley@csir.co.za) Treasurer: Malcolm Govender (3278135 mgovender2@csir.co.za) Events Coordinator: Alpha Ibrahim (3340275 aibrahim@csir.co.za) The last year has been a rather eventful year for the student chapter and all its events attended throughout the year. We tried our utmost to utilise the funds as efficiently and effectively as possible that were given to us in the form of grants from OSA and SPIE. We feel that we have embarked on new and fresh ideas and hope to carry this knowledge forward into the following year.

1. Visiting Lecturer: Prof. James Leger The CSIR Student Chapter has been fortunate enough through OSA visiting lecturer program to invite Prof James Leger from the University of Minnesota to present a lecture series on Diffractive Optics. He is highly respected in his field and his lectures were of particular importance to our Laser beam shaping group during his visit from 9 January 2011 – 15 January 2011.

Some of the CSIR student members in the user facility laboratory with visiting

lecturer, Prof Leger. From left to right: Steven Nkosi, Attie Hendriks, Lerato Shikwambana, Sandile Ngcobo, Malcolm

Govender, Angela Dudley, Cosmas Mafusire, Prof James Leger and Yaseera Ismail. Lecture Series

1. Colloquium: “Laser Beam Analysis, Propagation, and Shaping Techniques” Prof Leger revised the basic laser beam characterization techniques including the Strehl ratio, M2 and power in the bucket, in determining the fundamental and important properties of a laser beam. He there after considered the shaping of the characterised beams through extra- and intra-cavity beam shaping techniques. These

techniques are used with binary diffractive optics in aberrated wavefront correction. This lecture was of significant importance as a portion of our Mathematical Optics group works on laser beam shaping techniques through intra-cavity beam shaping by use of binary diffractive optics.

Date: Wednesday 12 January 2011 Venue: Knowledge Commons

Duration: 3.5 Hours

Attendance: 36 (A mixture of students and permanent staff from the NLC and DPSS)

2. Colloquium: “Diffractive Optics: Design, Analysis and Applications”

Prof Leger considered the fundamental principles of diffractive optics and in particular binary phase distortion through the Fresnel zone plate. He also spoke on the variety of fabrication and design methods including successive masking and etching, diamond turning, electron-beam writing and dry etching. This lecture was finalised with the applications which involve high power beams through phase conjugating mirrors and modal discrimination in solid-state lasers.

Prof Leger indulging the audience in diffractive element design.

Date: Thursday 13 January 2011 Venue: Knowledge Commons

Duration: 2.5 Hours

Attendance: 28 (A mixture of students and permanent staff from the NLC and DPSS)

3. Colloquium: “Fundamentals of Coherent and Incoherent Beam Combining”

Prof Leger presented the differences and important features on beam combining. Of particular importance, Radiance was discussed at length which is equivalent to the power per unit spatial mode. Radiance theorems were considered for incoherent sources. In coherent beam combining, mutual coherence is necessary and methods of achieving this was discussed along with additional techniques.

Date: Friday 14 January 2011 Venue: Knowledge Commons

Duration: 3.5 Hours

Attendance: 29 (A mixture of students and permanent staff from the NLC and DPSS)

The entire CSIR was invited to attend this series of lectures and without a doubt was received very well by all who had attended. Prof Leger had also presented us with a series of notes pertaining to his talk and many fruitful discussions took place during his visits through some of our labs and in particular the laser resonator lab.

2. Conferences Several of the students had attended a total of 7 international conferences and 3 local conferences throughout the year.

SPIE Photonics West (San Francisco, USA):

SPIE Defence, Security and Sensing (DSS) (Orlando Florida, USA) & CLEO 2011 (Baltimore Maryland, USA)

Chapter Member Darryl Naidoo with the CSIR chapter advisor Prof. Andrew Forbes enjoying a beer at the poster session

Chapter Member Darryl Naidoo presented a talk and a poster at

Photonics West. Pictured with the CSIR chapter advisor Prof. Andrew Forbes enjoying a beer at the poster session.

Chapter Member Ludwig DeClerq who presented a talk and was awarded a

SPIE travel grant, taking in the sights.

Chapter Member Cobus Jacobs presented work at DSS and CLEO and then found himself thermally

imaged while having an ice cream.

The International Conference on Laser Applications in Life Sciences (LALS)

(Oulu, Finland)

10th Edition of the Femtochemistry Conferences (Madrid, Spain)

CLEO Europe (Munich, Germany), SPIE Optics and Photonics (San Diego, USA) & OSA Frontiers in Optics (San Jose, USA)

Chapter member Oliver Collett attended a series of talks at CLEO Europe. Chapter treasurer Alpha Ibrahim attended the student leadership workshop at Optics and Photonics where he was awarded a SPIE travel grant. He presented a poster on the progress of the CSIR student chapter. Chapter member Melanie McLaren had attended Frontiers in Optics. Unfortunately no photos were taken by these conference attendees.

Chapter Member Kaminee Maduray in the Biophotonics group presented a talk and is hidden amongst the conference attendees

Chapter Member Nicolene Botha in the Femtosecond group presented a poster

on coherent control in Madrid.

South African Institute of Physics Conference 2011 (SAIP) (Pretoria, South Africa)

11th International Conference of Frontiers in Polymers and Advance Materials (ICFPAM) (Pretoria, South Africa) &

The 4th IUPAP International Conference on Women in Physics (ICWIP) (Stellenbosch, South Africa)

Three chapter members, Angela Dudley, Nicolene Botha and Kaminee Maduray attended The 4th IUPAP International Conference on Women in Physics in Stellenbosch in April. Where they interacted with other professionals in the field of physics.

Chapter Members Malcolm Govender, Cobus Jacobs and Darryl Naidoo all scooped the awards for the best oral presentations in the Materials (Masters award), Lasers (PhD award) and Lasers

(Masters award) groups respectively. Amazon Kindles’ were sponsored to the winners in the Lasers group by Zeiss Optronics

and Wirsam Scientific.

Two chapter members, Brian Yalisi

(left) and Malcolm Govender (right)

attended the ICFPAM in Pretoria where Brian received top

honors for his poster presentation.

3. Outreach The CSIR student chapter attends many events that are aimed at educating primary and high school students in an event to create public understanding of laser sciences and engineering. The main events include ScienceTube (±400 Atendees) in Thohoyandou, Limpopo, SciFest (±550 Atendees) in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, Science Unlimited (±300 Atendees) in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, Sasol Techno X (±450 Atendees) in Sasolburg, Gauteng and National Science Week (±800 Atendees) in the Eastern Cape along the Garden route. We have made a presentation that is fitting for school students with fun images and many videos. We also perform the famous balloon popping experiment with a laser pointer on unsuspecting students. In addition to the laser scope, we have also included in our talks the career guidance in science in an attempt to get lots of students attending University to study physics. The students are all very responsive and enthusiastic about science and in particular laser science. The student chapter and in particular Chapter members Angela Dudley and Darryl Naidoo embarked on a new venture for outreach and were chosen to be judges of two sciences school expos. The first school is called Eduplex and is a center for children with hearing disabilities. About 10% of the children are completely deaf with another 30% that have hearing disabilities. The second school is called Pretoria Chinese school, where the Chinese language of Mandarin is part of their syllabus. This was extremely rewarding for both chapter members and we presented books and certificates to the grade winners from Eduplex on their achievements. Three chapter members Angela Dudley, Malcolm Govender and Darryl Naidoo attended the Tshwane University of Technoloty (TUT) (±60 Atendees) and gave a presentation on the National Laser Center (Our facility in the CSIR). This was aimed at introducing laser concepts to Physics students.

Some of the students at ScienceTube in Thohoyandou, Limpopo with Thomas DuPlooy (Pictured far left) looking at white light through diffraction gratings

Left: Darryl Naidoo at Science Unlimited discussing some careers. Right: Malcolm Govender explaining nano particles to University students.

Left: Brian Yalisi discussing laser material processing. Right: Edzani Ratsibi explaining the fundamental properties of a laser beam.

Darryl Naidoo enlightening students at TUT on encoding information into laser beams and sending them into space.

Students at Eduplex excited about their exhibitions. Pictured right is a mock certificate that was presented

to the grade winners in their respective categories.

4. Student Braai and Team Building Several of the students that were part of the chapter had departed in 2011 to pursue PhD studies or employment elsewhere. It was only fitting to hold a braai for all the students as part of saying goodbye and a chance for the students to get together and have some fun.

As part of a team building exercise the CSIR student chapter and members of the staff from the NLC formed two football teams and proceeded to play every Thursday for 2 hours. This was a great way to burn out the physics problems and have some good fun. Thomas Godin from the CiMap student chapter in Caen, France, joined us as he was a visiting student in collaborative work with his group.

Students getting together to say goodbye to Ludwig DeClercq and Palesa Molukanele. Later in the year chapter members Thobeka Whittes, Malcolm

Govender and Lerato Shikwambana all left to continue their careers elsewhere.

Our Football squad trying to replicate the country’s own Bafana Bafana.

5. Funding and Expenses

Student Chapter Account Opening Balance 9321.33

Funding OSA Travelling Lecturer Program (04 February) 14266.00 OSA Grant (11 February) 5392.43 OSA Travel Grant (27 June) 3408.75 Total 23067.18

Expenses

Prof Leger Lunch (14 January) 818.95 Travelling lecturer refund to Chapter Advisor (04 February) 14166.00 Student Braai Lapa Hire (11 April) 600.00 Student Braai Meat, Bread, Salad, Soft Drinks, Coal, Plates (14 April) 1855.77 Student Farewell Gifts (14 April) 600.00 Eduplex certificates and book awards (06 July) 1145.05 Chapter Poster (5 August) 565.00 Cobus Jacobs Travel Grant (5 August) 3308.75 Science Unlimited Baloons and Transport (9 September) 390.00 Bank Charges for the Year 620.25 24069.77

Closing Balance 8318.74

In the following year, the student funds will be used to buy new demonstration equipment to accompany us to the various events that we will attend. We also plan on getting chapter t-shirts and a chapter business card such that schools and Universities can contact us on. Some of the events that we plan on attending throughout the year is as follows: February: Science Unlimited Gauteng March: Science Unlimited Free State, SciFest Eastern Cape April: Science-Tube, Kimberly May: Hosting two schools for a day visit at the NLC July: Science-Tube, Limpopo, SAIP 2012 August: National Science Week, Mpumalanga, Sasol Techo-X, Sasolburg, Science unlimited, KwaZulu-Natal September: Mafikeng Roan Show, Mafikeng. In the interim we plan on visiting various universities and career days at schools to share our knowledge and educate these places on light and lasers.

6. Members The CSIR student chapter has been running for four years and currently has 21 student members. The members that have left during the year have not been excluded off the list as their memberships have yet to expire. We have also yet to renew memberships as some students only return at the end of January 2012, thus all renewals and new memberships will be sorted out at the end of January 2012 to achieve a member list of greater than the minimum requirement. New Chapter officers will be elected at our first annual meeting of the year on 3 February 2012 as all students will be back from vacation. Chapter members Angela Dudley Alpha Ibrahim Melanie McLaren Lali Rasalanavho Darryl Naidoo Brian Yalisi Nicolene Botha Ngcali Tile Attie Hendriks Edzani Ratsibi Ramathabate Madigoe Oliver Collett Steven Nkosi Mapula DeGama Saturnin Ombinda Wayne Koen Monnamme Tlotleng Roelf Botha Yaseera Ismail

Chapter members with Prof James Leger.

Standing (left to right):Malcolm Govender, Lerato Shikwambana, Steven Nkosi, Prof Leger, Brian Yalisi, Ngcali Tile, Alpha Ibrahim, Thobeka Whittes, Darryl

Naidoo, Oliver Collett and Ludwig DeClercq. Sitting (left to right): Kaminee Maduray, Angela Dudley, Cosmas Mafusire, Attie

Hendriks, Palesa Molukanele and Mapula DeGama.