On October 22, 2007, during the Awards Banquet of the IEEE LEOS Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, the IEEE LEOS Poland Chapter received the Largest Membership Increase Award of the IEEE Lasers & Electro-Optics Society. Membership of the Chapter increased from 24 to 31 (i.e. by 29%) between 2006 and 2007
The Chapter was organized in 2001 (approved by IEEE LEOS on February 7 of that year), as a result of the efforts of Professor Marian Marciniak from the National Institute of Telecommunication, Warsaw, Poland. This effort was initiated in 1998. Professor Marciniak was the first Chapter Chairman, and was re-elected in 2002. Professor Krzysztof Abramski, Wroclaw University of Technology, was elected in 2003 and re-elected in 2004 as the second Chairman, and Professor W_odzimierz Nakwaski, Technical University of Lodz, became the third in 2005 and 2006. Professor Sergiusz Patela, Wroclaw University of Technology, is now Chairman-Elect.
The Chapter has concentrated on the organization of scientific conferences and facilitation of lectures from Distinguished LEOS Lecturers and other professors from leading research centers working in photonics, mostly on laser technology, theory and applications, and describing the latest achievements in this area. During last two years, the following researchers have given lectures for the Chapter members:
1. Petr G. Eliseev, Center for High Technology Materials, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA (two lectures)
2. Jorge C. Rocca, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
3. Philip Russel, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany (LEOS DL)
4. Tomasz Rogowski, Scuola Superior, Santa Anna, Pisa, Italy
5. Chennupati Jagadish, Australia National University, Canberra, Australia (LEOS DL)
6. Marek Wartak, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
7. Toshihiko Baba, Yokohama National University, Japan (LEOS DL)
8. Hussein T. Mouftah, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (IEEE ComSoc DL)
9. Krassimir Panajotov, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
10. John O’Brien, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA (LEOS DL)
11. Masaya Notomi, NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Atsugi, Japan (LEOS DL)
The picture shows Professors Notomi and Nakwaski during a visit to the center of Lodz, the second greatest city of Poland, strictly speaking – the famous Piotrkowska Street, with the aid of ‘riksha’, the only accepted vehicle in this area.

Marian Marciniak receives the award for Largest Membership Increase on behalf of the IEEE/LEOS Poland Chapter from Alan Willner at the 2007 LEOS Annual.

The IEEE LEOS Poland Chapter was also a technical sponsor of the International Conferences on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), our flagship conference. The first six conferences were organized in Poland in Kielce (1999), Gdansk (2000), Kraków (2001), Warsaw (2002 and 2003), and Wroclaw (2004). Their international character has been enhanced by organizing subsequent ICTON conferences in Barcelona (Spain) in 2005, in Nottingham (UK) in 2006 and in Rome (Italy) in 2007. The next 10th Anniversary ICTON Conference, is going to be held in 2008 in Athens (Greece). Currently the ICTON conference is composed of many symposia and workshops and during the last 9th ICTON Conference in Rome, the following were organized:
• 6th European Symposium on Photonic Crystals (ESPC Symposium)
• 6th Workshop on All-Optical Routing (WAOR Workshop)
• 4th Global Optical & Wireless Networking Seminar (GOWN Seminar)
• 3rd Workshop on Reliability Issues in Next Generation Optical Networks (RONEXT Workshop)
• 3rd Photonic Integrated Components & Application Workshop (PICAW Workshop)
• 2nd Nanophotonic for All-Optical Networking Workshop (NAON Workshop)
• 2nd Conference on Graphs and Algorithms in Communication Networks (GRAAL Conference)
with special sessions on:
• Microresonators and Photonic Molecules (MPM): trapping, harnessing, and releasing light Novel Glasses for Photonic Devices
• Broadband Access: making use of optical transparency for user access
The number of ICTON participants has steadily increased from 87 in 1999 to 346 in 2007. At the same time, the number of conference contributions has increased from 70 in 1999 to 350 in 2007. Participants from as many as many as 48 countries have taken part in the ICTON conferences, some of them have come from very distant and exotic countries: 8 participants from Armenia, 15 from Australia, 6 from Brazil, 24 from Canada, 1 from Chile, 12 from China, 3 from India, 7 from Iran, 59 from Japan, 28 from Korea, 2 from Malaysia, 1 from Mexico, 1 from Morocco, 3 from New Zealand, 1 from Singapore, 2 from Taiwan, and 24 from USA.
In addition, the IEEE LEOS Poland Chapter was a technical sponsor of the International Conference MicroTherm’2007, “Thermal Problems in Electronics” in Lodz, Poland, June 24-28, 2007 and the 2007 ICTON Mediterranean Winter Conference in Sousse, Tunisia, December 6-8, 2007, a new satellite event to ICTON conferences, which brings ICTON and LEOS field of interest to this area.
More information may be found in http://phys.p.lodz.pl/leos

Professors Notomi and Nakwaski during a visit to the center of Lodz, the second greatest city of Poland.

Biography:
Wlodzimierz Nakwaski, full professor in Physics since 1996, is a director of the Institute of Physics, Technical University of Lódz, Lódz, Poland. In 1996-2002 he has served as a Dean of the Faculty of the Technical Physics, Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. His research interest includes physical self-consistent modeling of an operation of opto-electronic devices, mostly semiconductor lasers, and optimization of their designs for various applications. He is an author or co-author of over 400 publications, 6 chapters in books and 2 books (Semiconductor Lasers (in Polish), PWN, Warsaw and Physics of Semiconductor Lasers, North Holland, Amsterdam) which have been more than 600 times quoted by other authors. For his scientific achievements, he has been 7 times awarded the Prize of the Minister of National Education. He is a Senior IEEE LEOS Member and has been in 2005-2007 a chairman of the IEEE LEOS Poland Chapter. In 1990-1998, he spent nearly six years at the Center for High Technology Materials, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA, initially as a Research Senior Scientist and later as a Research Associate Professor. He is a co-editor of the Opto-Electronics Review. He is a nominator of the Kyoto Prize in Science and the Nobel Prize in Physics.