Conferences,
Workshops, Seminars

During my life I have presented at more than two hundred different conferences, workshops and seminars. Here are some of those which stand out in my memory.

Seminars at Landau Institute for Theoretical physics

My first presentation was in 1967 at the Landau Institute's seminar series whilst still a PhD student there. The seminar was guided by academician Isaac Khalatnikov then the Director of the Institute. I remember that I was able only to announce the title of my report before the whole auditorium started to explain to me how I should solve the problem. Never since have I come across a seminar at which the arguing participants pushed the lecturer away to write their own formulas on the board. They say that during Landau’s time these discussions were even fiercer. There was a strong «spirit of Landau» at these seminars. Such seminars were really a great school of science! In his book «Brighter than a Thousand Suns» Robert Jungk wrote about the outstanding brotherhood of physicists. Although many people connected with the Landau Institute now work outside Russia many of them came to the memorial conference devoted to the academician Landau 100-year anniversary. Isaac Markovich visited all the lectures and signed each of his books in person. For me he wrote «To dear Boris Luk`yanchuk — scientist and poet. Isaac Khalatnikov».

During 1978–1998 I made many presentations at the seminars of academicians A. M. Prokhorov and F. V. Bunkin and also at Prof. A.A. Rukhadze’s seminar series at the General Physics Institute. I gave presentations at the Lebedev Physical Institute — seminar of Prof. A.N. Oraevsky (I could not find his photo in the internet) and Prof. D.S. Chernavsky. Prof. Chernavsky declined the prize of one million euro (only the second case after Gregory Perelman), so there are many photos of him on the Internet. I am very thankful of these people for their many discussions and collaboration. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Fedor Vasilevich Bunkin on his 80 years anniversary and wish him success and happiness.

Seminars at Moscow State University and
at the Conference on Coherent and Nonlinear Optics

Since 1978 I have regularly made presentations at the All-Union Conferences on «Coherent and Nonlinear Optics», which were the principal conferences on the physics of laser matter interactions in the former Soviet Union. The chairmen of these conferences was Prof. Sergey Akhmanov. I also gave a few presentations at his Seminar at Moscow State University, and gave presentations at some other seminars, guided by Profs. N. Koroteev, A. Sukhorukov, Yu. Klimontovich, Ya. Sinai and Yu. Romanovsky. Unfortunately I could not find photos of Prof. Yuri Romanovsky or Prof. Nikolay Koroteev.

Seminars at S.I. Vavilov State Optical Institute, St. Petersburg and
at the Conferences on Non-resonance Interaction of Optical Radiation with Matter

Since 1978 I have regularly made presentations at the All-Union conferences on «Non-resonance Interaction of Optical Radiation with Matter» in St. Petersburg. The chairman of these was Prof. Alexey Mikhailovich Bonch-Bruevich. There were also many seminars guided by Prof. Michael Libenson. These two remain in my memory not only as the chairs of the conferences and seminars but also as my friends and colleagues. Both of them were very intelligent people and real gentleman and suitably represented the style of the St. Petersburg scientific school in laser physics. Alexey Mikhailovich wrote in his paper, devoted to the memory of academician Sergei Vavilov: «Personal memoirs of an employee or a pupil about his teacher or chief usually substantially represent the story of themselves». Now I can just repeat those words.

Prof. A.M. Bonch-Bruevich

Prof. M.N. Libenson

Seminars at Nizhnii Novgorod and School on Nonlinear Oscillations and Waves

Since 1983 I have participated in many seminars and conferences at Nizhnii Novgorod. The All-Union schools on «Nonlinear Oscillations and Waves» guided by academician Andrey Victorovich Gaponov-Grekhov and Prof. Michael Rabinovich are unforgettable. I also made presentations at the seminars of academician Sergey Gaponov and Prof. Viktor Bespalov. The Nizhnii Novgorod Scientific School, related to such names as Mandelstam and Andronov was the greatest «nonlinear school» in the former Soviet Union.

Seminars at Novosibirsk and Odessa

There are two other seminar series I want to mention. The first one was in Novosibirsk, where I presented at the seminar of academician Veniamin Pavlovich Chebotayev. I was very proud to hear his encouraging words about laser thermochemistry, which we were developing at that time. Prof. Chebotayev was, at least twice, very close to getting the Nobel Prize. Everybody grieved when he passed away at 53.

The second seminar, or more exact, a few summer schools in Odessa on «Laser-Matter Interactions» were guided by Prof. Sergey Ivanovich Anisimov, an outstanding scientist from the Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics. He suggested many theoretical models, which were widely accepted by the world scientific community. It is sufficient to mention just the thermal model of laser ablation or the two-temperature model for the heating by short laser pulses or the theory of Knudsen layer at strong laser evaporation or the theory of optical breakdown of weakly absorbing dielectrics or self-similar solutions of gas dynamic equations describing the plume expansion.

V.P. Chebotayev

S.I. Anisimov

I remember these next four seminars because they were guided by legendary scientists whose classical papers are greatly known in the history of science. I participated at the conference of Prof. N.N. Moiseev in Shushenskoe (in 1979). I made a presentation at the seminar of Prof. S.M. Rytov in 1986 and at the seminar of Prof. A.B. Migdal also in 1986. In 1988 I gave a presentation at the E. Solvay seminar at the International Institute of Physics and Chemistry in Brussels, Belgium. This seminar was guided by Prof. Ilya Prigogine (The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1977). Each of these seminars was a big event in my life.

In 2001 I organized the 1st International Workshop on Laser Cleaning in Singapore. Since then there have been four other International workshops continuing the study of this actual topic. These workshops were organized by Prof. Carmen Afonso (Madrid, Spain, 2002), Prof Savas Georgiou (Crete, Greece, 2003), Prof. Deborah Kane (Sydney, Australia, 2004) and Prof. Paul Leiderer (Konstanz, Germany, 2006). I thank the chairs of these workshops for inviting me to lecture. Deborah Kane also published the book «Laser Cleaning II» in World Scientific.

Conferences on Laser Ablation (COLA)

COLA conferences were the most prestigious for all people working with laser ablation. The main driving force for these conferences is Prof. David Geohegan and I participated in a few of them. I have not shown photos of all the chairs of COLA in different countries though those of Prof. Carmen Afonso and Prof. Dieter Bäuerle were presented above. I am very grateful to all the chairs for invitations.

High Power Laser Ablation Conferences in Taos USA, EMRS Conferences
in Strasbourg France, ALT Conference in Brasov Romania

Here are photos of the chairs of three conferences in USA, France and Romania where I gave invited and plenary lectures. Dr. Claude Phipps organized excellent conferences on «High Power Laser Ablation» held in Taos every two years. Prof. Tamas Szorenyi and Prof. Maria Dinescu were chairs at the EMRS Conference in France and academician Ivan Shcherbakov together with Maria Dinescu organized a perfect conference in Brasov, Romania. These conferences are very popular in the laser community and give a good chance for professional discussions among specialists.

Conferences on Plasmonics in Dijon France, Seefeld Austria
and NTR Conference on Porquerolles Island France

Plasmonics, metamaterials and nanotechnology are the three «hot topics» which attract big attention of the scientific community. Here I want to mention three excellent conferences and their chairs: Prof. Alain Dereux in France, Prof. Nikolay Zheludev in Austria and Prof. Boris Chichkov and Prof. Slava Safarov at the Porquerolles Island, France. These conferences were among the most useful for me, from a professional point of view, during the last several years.

It is hard to say who is the «father» of plasmonics. Maybe it is J. Zenneck, who was the first to analyze a solution of Maxwell's equations with a «surface wave» property in 1907 or maybe A. Sommerfeld who analyzed the basic properties of surface electromagnetic wave in 1909. Maybe it is R. H. Ritchie who published a paper in 1957 where he discussed plasmon wave in thin films. Myself, I prefer to consider Prof. Vladimir Agranovich as the «father» of plasmonics. There is some parallel in the history of science. It is well known that Galileo was not the first to discover the telescope. Nevertheless only after Galileo’s demonstration of Jupiter’s moons did the telescope became popular throughout the whole world. Certainly Prof. Agranovich played Galileo’s role in plasmonics when he published a classical book with V. L. Ginzburg in 1965 on spatial dispersion in crystal optics and the theory of excitons. J. Wiley & Sons published an English translation of the book in 1966. I was very proud to participate in the Dallas conference in 2004 devoted to the jubilee of Vladimir Moiseevich.

V.M. Agranovich

V.L. Ginzburg

I want to conclude this page with a few additional photos with some famous
scientists which I met during different Conferences, Workshops and Seminars.

1	7	Photo №1 — Prof. Leo Esaki (Nobel Prize in Physics) at COLA 2005 (Crete, Greece) Photo №7 — Prof. David Thompson (Director IBM) — Chair of Scientific Advisory Board at Data Storage Institute 2002
2	8	Photo №2 — Prof. Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (Nobel Prize in Physics) during his visit to Data Storage Institute 2008 Photo №8 — Profs. M.H. Hong, M. Stuke and A. Dereux during Workshop on Plasmonics at Singapore 2006
3	9	Photo №3 — Prof. Roy J. Glauber (Nobel Prize in Physics) at COLA 2007 (Tenerife, Spain) Photo №9 — Profs. V. Veselago and M. Stockman (both in the centre) during Workshop on Plasmonics at Singapore 2006
4	10	Photo №4 — Prof. Isaac Khalatnikov at Memorial Conference devoted to academician Landau 100-years anniversary (Chernogolovka, Russia 2008) Photo №10 — Prof. O.N. Krokhin at COLA 2005 (Crete, Greece)
5	11	Photo №5 — Profs. Vladimir Zakharov and Lev Lipatov at Memorial Conference devoted to academician Landau 100-years anniversary (Chernogolovka, Russia 2008) Photo №11 — Profs. M. Brongersma, V. Shalaev (both in the centre) during Plasmonic Conference at Dijon, France 2008
6	12	Photo №6 — Prof. Sergei Anisimov at Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics 2005 Photo №12 — Prof. Andrey Fursenko (Minister of Education of Russia) at NTR Conference (Porquerolles Island, France 2008)

In 2009 there will be two Conferences in Singapore

International Conference on Materials for Advanced technologies, ICMAT 2009.

I was a Chair of Symposium «G»: «Plasmonics and Applications».
Here are the photos of some ICMAT 2009 participants
and some invited lecturers at our Symposium «G»

10th International Conference on Laser Ablation, COLA 2009, Singapore

I was a Chair of this Conference together with Prof. Hong MingHui.
We had excellent scientists as International Co-Chairs:
Prof. Richard F. Haglund, Jr from the Vanderbilt University, USA;
Prof. Mikio Takai from the Osaka University, Japan
and Prof. Alfred Vogel from the Lübeck University, Germany.

We had about 300 participants at our Conference and above 20 invited lectures delivered by world recognized scientists. I was not able to put all the photos, however some people were presented on my site previously. I hope the organizers will prepare soon a full collection of photos on the Conference website.

Here are our lecturers on the Opening Session

Here I put a few photos of our invited lecturers and Sessions Chairs

Women in Science, the ladies of COLA

In banana-lemon Singapore near the Merlion

Prof. Andrei Kabahin (France), academician Oleg Krokhin (Russia)
and Prof. Irina Zavestovskaya (Russia)

Welcome to Singapore!