Ecole Polytechnique – ParisTech Annual Report 2010

Below is the report of the first year of activity of our chapter.

1. Names, email addresses, and Member numbers of elected Officers. The first election of the officers was held on February, 19th 2010. 20 members were registered at the time. The results was the following : 2010 Chapter Officers President: Clement Fallet (clement.fallet@polytechnique.edu) ID 03315108 Vice-President: Nayely Pannier (nayely.pannier@polytechnique.edu) ID 03315118 Secretary: Louis Gorintin (louis.gorintin@polytechnique.edu) ID 03259074 Treasurer: Blaise Fleury (blaise.fleury@polytechnique.edu) ID 03315119

2. List of current Student Chapter Members. On december, 1st 2010, the chapter had 31 members.

Frigout Alexandre

Torres-Rios Alfonso

Revaux Amélie

Dhar Anirban

Fournier Antoine

Wojdyla Antoine

O’Donnell Benedict

Fleury Blaise

Crotti Caroline

Lee Chang Seok

Fallet Clément

Lefeuvre Emmanuel

Perez Frédéric

Labroille Guillaume

Martial Igor

Gusachenko Ivan

Cho Jinyoun

Labaune Julien

Kim Ki Hwan

Lobato Laura

Gorintin Louis

Durand Magali

Pannier Nayely

Yaghmazadeh Omid

Mahou Pierre

Glorieux Quentin

Farahi Salma

Turkcan Silvan

Grabielle Stéphanie

Majee Subimal

Heo Youn Ho

However, 11 new members whose names and ID are listed below are waiting for their registration to be

paid by the school as it is the rule for the first timers.

Dang, 03382732

Yahia, 03382733

Leliepvre, 03382734

Goyon, 03382737

Norman, 03382738

Jarnac, 03382739

Cariou, 03382740

Ettoumi, 03382741

Portier, 03382743

Delattre, 03382745

Ndong , 03382746

Thus, by the end of 2010, the student should have 42 members.

3. Details of Chapter activities since last report.

During his first year of activity, the chapter has been pretty busy and has organized various

events and has contributed to the scientific life of the community.

First seminar of the student chapter: “Femto-second pulses and their

applications”

The seminar has been quite a success considering the fact that most people had never heard about

the chapter before. The introduction had been given by Prof Manuel Joffre from the Laboratory

of Optics and Biosciences in the Ecole Polytechnique. This talk had been very appreciated by all

the people not so familiar with the subject. Then four students introduced their work. The

diversity of laboratories and companies represented during the seminar enabled a variety of topics

related to femto second pulses from laser filamentation to kerato refractive surgery. However, the

organization of this event has not been flawless and we learnt several things about organizing

such things. Four student talks is too much: two or three is far enough and we haven’t been clear

enough with the speakers when preparing the seminar, some came with presentations in French

though some in the audience were not French speakers. We now make sure speakers have

presentations in English.

People attending our first seminar

The audience for this first event was mainly people from the labs of the speakers. Around 35

people globally attended the seminar and the coffee break has been a very good way to mix

people and get them to meet each other. People appreciated this seminar that enabled them to

meet scientists working in the same field a few meters away.

Photonics Europe 2010 12 - 16 April 2010

The Square Conference Ctr.

Brussels, Belgium

Were presents: Nayely Pannier (Vice-President) and Blaise Fleury (Treasurer). Participate to this

meeting was a great opportunity for us. We had the occasion to meet Dirk Fabian and follow his

workshop on ‘Hit the target’. The kits hit the target we received in Bruxelles allowed the chapter

to organize some of the events we are about to present in this report.

Workshops

Effective Technical Presentations

Hit-the-Target Laser Activity Workshop

This meeting was the moment to go to social events and develop our network.

Social and networking events

Student Lunch with the Experts

Comic Strip Walking Dinner

Walking Welcome Dinner

First Lab Tour: Le Louvre

Le Louvre is a well-known museum, French pride, but it is also a very prolific research facility

on art conservation and restoration. One of our member is a PhD student in the lab located in le

Louvre which is called C2RMF (Center for Research and Restoration of the French Museums)

and he offered us the opportunity to visit their facilities. This visit was organized with the student

chapter from the Institut d’Optique Graduate School affiliated to the OSA. Around 20 people

signed up for the visit, this number being limited on the museum’s request. However, a public

transportation strike meddled with our plans and finally only 12 of us managed to get to the lab.

Groupe picture (left), Julien Labaune, PhD student, presenting us the X-ray room (right)

This visit showed us how optics can help during the process of restoration of a piece of art.

50th Anniversary of the birth of Laser in Paris 2010 was the 50th anniversary of the invention of Laser. The Ecole Polytechnique and the city of Paris

joined their forces to organize a world class event. As the student chapter of the Ecole Polytechnique, we

have been invited to participate in this 2 day ceremony. The first day was actually more a conference day

and the members of the chapter mainly met officials from the OSA and SPIE and scientists from the Laser

community. The second day was part conference, part outreach forum and the chapter mainly focused

on the second part. We shared a booth with our friends from the OSA chapter where we showed some

aspects of the laser light using some simple experiments. Our booth has been visited by a large amount

of people (cf report for the LaserFest grant) from 4 yo kids to old people eager to discover the core of

new technologies such as optical fibers.

Demonstrating the optical activity of some sugars (left), teaching High School students (right)

But the most exciting part of this event has been the official inauguration ceremony of the chapter. Our

President, Clément Fallet, has been honored with a speech in front of the 6 Nobel Prize Laureates

attending this ceremony (Claude Cohen-Tanoudji, Nicolaas Bloembergen, Charles Townes, Ahmed

Zewail, Charles K. Kao, sand Herbert Kroemer). Though very short due to a tight schedule, this speech in

front of such a broad assembly gathered to hear Nobel Laureates shared their point of view about

research and science has enabled us to reach out new members.

1st

row : Inauguration ceremony speech given by our President Clément Fallet, 2nd

row, pictures from Charles Townes (left) and Claude Cohen Tanoudji, both Nobel Prize Laureates.

European Research Night On the September 24th, the Ecole Polytechnique along with other institutions in Europe hosted a

celebration of the European Research Night. The aim of the event is to present to the general public

what research truly is with presentations from research scientists and small workshops. The chapter had

its own booth for this event. The morning and the beginning of the afternoon were dedicated to schools,

with children from elementary schools to High School. Each children group had a very detailed schedule

so timing was very tight. We then focused on the ‘Hit the Target’ curriculum for elementary schools and

on diffraction and birefringence for older audiences. We also presented how to switch on a neon tube

with a plasma ball. Our booth was the most successful among elementary schools due to the accessibility

of the game. Around 20 kids from elementary schools and the same amount of Middle and High School

attended our booth.

From left to right, the plasma ball; creating images with the diffraction of light; Hit the Target

The end of the afternoon and the evening were dedicated to the general public, especially people

working and living on the campus or close to it. It is very hard to quantify how many people actually

visited our booth but more than 2000 people came to the school that night. We focused on animations

suitable for large audience, so we suppress the ‘Hit the Target’ and arranged a small demo booth for

Khet, the laser game, because it was simpler to control who was playing. We kept the diffraction

experiments. We also presented the corn-starch experience to show non Newtonian Fluids. Though very

dirty, people were amazed by this fluid.

4. Details of planned activities for the future.

Our previous experience with student seminar confirmed the interest the scientific community

has in this kind of event. Thus, a second seminar, replacing the one Prof. Bahram Javidi had to

cancel last October, has already been planned for the 10th

of January 2011 with an invited lecture

by Michael Larson. The topic of this second seminar will be ‘How Optics can help medicine?’

We will have two student talks, one about cancer diagnosis using polarized light, and the second

one to be confirmed.

We will also organize the first French Khet Tournament under the supervision of Michael Larson

himself. We are waiting around 30 players for the tournament. It will take place in the Grand

Hall, the central place on the campus to ensure the biggest exposition.

We are also planning a new lab tour in the Institut Langevin belonging to the ESPCI.

5. Financial information.

Beginning balance : this is the first year of activity of the chapter.

Funds raised and expended (indicate amounts and source/destination)

o The grad student association covered some invoices for us. Especially at the

beginning of the year when SPIE grant was not available.

o The Ecole Polytechnique has paid all the registration fees we asked them to pay.

o The chapter paid for coffee breaks during the first seminar (100€)

o The chapter some food and drinks for the meetings (50€)

o The chapter bought some materials for the laserfest and the Nuit des Chercheurs

(120€)

o The chapter reimbursed Nayely and Blaise for some expenses they had in Brussels

(80€)

o The chapter bought some batteries for the Khet games Innovation Toys offered us

(50€)

Details of SPIE funding received

o We received $500 as activity grant

o We receiveed $200 as LaserFest grant

Other sources (please specify) : none

Ending balance : we still have 300€ on the chapter bank account but all of i twill be spent

for the organization of the next conference and the Khet Tournament. The grad student

association will also cover some food invoices for us.