The Scottish Chapter was honored to be named ‘Chapter of the Year’ in the recently-announced LEOS Chapter Awards for 2000. The Chapter, formed in 1996 and previously winner of ‘Chapter of the Year’ in 1997 and 1998 and ‘Most Innovative Chapter’ in 1999 continues to develop strongly, and has now set a track-record of achievement which will be very challenging to maintain!
Scotland has a long tradition of excellence in engineering, exemplified by famous names such as Watt and Kelvin. Key academic appointments in the 1970’s and 1980’s at several universities in Scotland have fostered an unusual concentration of internationally-recognized research activity in lasers and optoelectronics. Particular areas include ultrafast phenomena, diode-pumped solid-state lasers, III-V materials science and integrated optoelectronics. Traditionally, the students and post-docs trained in these universities have found future employment around the globe. This continues to be the case, but, increasingly, new initiatives and start-up companies in Scotland are providing opportunities closer to home. All these factors are contributing to a thriving environment for research, training and entrepreneurship in optoelectronics.
The Chapter was formed by IEEE Fellows John Marsh of Glasgow University and Alan Miller of the University of St. Andrews, and owes much to the efforts and support of both through its formative period. They realized that the closely-knit optoelectronics community in Scotland, based principally around the various universities and companies of the so-called ‘Central Belt’ linking the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, offered an ideal environment for the formation of a new Chapter of IEEE LEOS. Professor Miller, Chapter Chair from 1998 – 2000, continues to support the Chapter in his current role as Past Chair. Professor Marsh, founder Chairman, former Past Chair, and now Vice President of LEOS Region 8, also continues to provide support and advice to the Chapter. Professor Marsh has also played a leading role in attracting the 2002 LEOS Annual Meeting to Glasgow.
The Chapter was envisioned as providing a regular local forum for Scottish students and researchers to interact with peers and colleagues from both academia and industry, meeting a need not previously addressed. A format for technical meetings was quickly established, which has generally been followed since. This consists of arranging dedicated half-day LEOS meetings on an approximately monthly basis, with venue rotated between (mainly) the Central Belt Universities.
Efforts are made to organize each meeting around a theme, usually that of the keynote speaker. We have been fortunate, during the Chapter’s lifetime, to have attracted most of the IEEE/LEOS Distinguished Lecturers to visit Scotland and provide keynote talks; other key speakers are drawn locally, or are visiting academics and/or industrialists from the UK and abroad. We are fortunate that the breadth of activity within the Scottish universities usually allows us to relate local speaker topics to that of the keynote presentation. A particular feature of the meetings is to provide students and post-docs an opportunity to present their recent research results. This takes the form of either short research talks, or poster presentations held during a reception break in the meetings.
We aim to supplement the annual grant from LEOS by attracting commercial sponsorship for the meetings. This usually takes the form of a contribution towards refreshments served before the meeting and during the poster sessions. The companies have the opportunity during this time for a table-top exhibition and to distribute literature.
In organizing the meetings, the Chapter collaborates with a number of UK-based EEE and physics societies and trade and enterprise organizations. Within the past year, for example, these have included the Institute of Physics, the Scottish Optoelectronics Association, the UK Nitrides Consortium, and Scottish Enterprise (SE). Links to these organizations aid in building the programmes, widening the range of speakers available, and increasing the audience, and also help to raise the profile of the meetings and of LEOS both in Scotland and in the UK more generally. For particular meetings, the audience can be drawn from around the UK.
The enterprise network within Scotland brings many benefits. In particular, Scottish Enterprise, whose mission is to facilitate and encourage inward investment and enterprise, has been an active supporter of the Chapter. SE recognises the commercial potential of optoelectronics. To encourage students, post-docs and research staff to engage in entrepreneurial activities in this area, SE supports the SE/LEOS Entrepreneurship Club, which has been one of the key strengths of the Chapter. The Entrepreneurship Club meets several times per year, usually in dedicated workshops separate from the technical meetings of the Chapter. These meetings offer the opportunity to hear presentations by, and to seek advice and obtain mentoring from, leading entrepreneurs and industrialists in areas relating to optoelectronics.
The Chapter maintains its own web-site ( www.leos-scot.ac.uk ) from which further information may be obtained. This contains links to the various university and other groups in Scotland active in optoelectronics.