Materials have undoubtedly become a driving force behind scientific discovery and technological innovation in optics. Spectacular examples include ultrapure glass for optical fibers, and the blue light emitting diodes that brought their inventors the Nobel Prize. With the ever increasing trend towards multi- and cross-disciplinary research enabling breakthrough discoveries at the intersection of different research areas, Optical Materials Express (OMEx) aims to bridge the two (historically) somewhat disconnected communities of materials scientists and optical researchers.

The Journal provides a forum for interdisciplinary dialog and expertise exchange in the multifaceted research area that is optical materials. OMEx publishes articles on the growth, synthesis, processing, characterization, as well as micro- and nanofabrication of bulk, ultra-thin and/or structured materials for applications in optics and photonics. OMEx spans theoretical, computational and numerical modeling as well as experimental studies on optical materials, micro and nanostructures and functional devices. This encompasses a wide variety of topics, including luminescent materials, metamaterials, plasmonics, two-dimensional materials, liquid crystals, materials for lasing, integrated and quantum optics, biophotonic materials, and many others.

Assessing submissions across such a broad range of topics requires the help of volunteers from the community. Below, I’d like to introduce you to the current group of editors who make this possible. The team of associate editors at OMEx represents an array of fields and backgrounds, providing a diverse intellectual perspective. They dedicate many hours of their time and energy to ensure that important, high-quality research gets disseminated to the community via the Journal. I am greatly appreciative of their commitment and enthusiasm! I hope that our OMEx editorial team, together with our diverse pool of authors and readers, will continue to define and shape these cross-disciplinary research areas to enable advances in the fundamental science of light and emerging optical technologies.

Deputy Editor

Juejun (JJ) Hu

Juejun (JJ) Hu received his B.S. from Tsinghua University, China, in 2004, and his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, in 2009, both in materials science and engineering. He is currently the Merton C. Flemings Career Development Associate Professor at MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. His primary research interest is the field of integrated optics and photonics. Prior to joining MIT, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware, USA from 2010 to 2014. JJ has authored and coauthored more than seventy refereed journal publications since 2006. He has been recognized with the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development award, the Robert L. Coble Award from the American Ceramic Society, the Gerard J. Mangone Young Scholars Award, the University of Delaware College of Engineering Outstanding Junior Faculty Member, and the University of Delaware Excellence in Teaching Award, among others. He was Associate Editor for Optical Materials Express from 2014 to 2016 and has served as Deputy Editor since 2016.

Associate Editors

Ivan Biaggio

Ivan Biaggio received his Ph.D. in physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Switzerland in 1993. He then held postdoctoral positions at the University of Southern California, USA and the Institut d'Optique Théorique et Appliquée, France before returning to the Nonlinear Optics Laboratory at ETH in 1996 to become the leader of the Photonic Materials Technologies team. Ivan moved to Lehigh University, USA in 2002 and became the Joseph A. Waldschmitt Chair in physics in 2017. Among his recent achievements are the demonstration of a new paradigm for creating high-quality third-order nonlinear optical materials using dense supramolecular assemblies of optimized small molecules — which lead to the first demonstration of organic nonlinear optics for ultrafast all-optical switching on the silicon photonics platform — and several studies of excitonic processes in organic molecular crystals such as the investigation of long triplet diffusion lengths and high-efficiency exciton fission and fusion in rubrene single crystals. Ivan has served on the program committee for Frontiers in Optics, he is on the organizing committee for the Foundations of Nonlinear Optics meetings, worked with colleagues to develop and guest-edit a recent feature issue of JOSA B on Nonlinear Optics Near the Fundamental Limit, and has been a member of the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2014.

Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem

Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Jena, Germany, in 1994. She subsequently held two prestigious fellowships and received the Weyl International Glass Science Award. From 2001 to 2004 she worked in the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton, UK. Since 2005, she has been with the University of Adelaide, Australia. Currently, she is Senior Investigator at the Centre for Nanoscale BioPhotonics and the Deputy Director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing. Her research focuses on the development of novel optical glasses, fibers, surface functionalization and sensing approaches. Heike has served on the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2016.

Maria Farsari

Maria Farsari received her first degree in 1992 from the University of Crete, Greece and her Ph.D. in organic nonlinear optics from the University of Durham, UK in 1997. After graduating, Maria worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Universities of Durham and Sussex and as a Senior Optical Scientist for the security company DeLaRue Holographics. She is a founding member of Xsil Ltd, a Dublin-based company specializing in the design and manufacture of laser micro-machining equipment for the semiconductor industry. Since 2003, Maria has been a Researcher at the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Greece. Her main research interests are multi-photon lithography, laser-based nanofabrication, and materials processing using ultrafast lasers. She has been a member of the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2016.

Stavroula Foteinopoulou

Stavroula Foteinopoulou received her Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from Iowa State University, USA and has held post-doctoral positions in University of Namur, Belgium as well as the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Greece. She was a Lecturer at the University of Exeter, UK until taking up her current position as Research Professor at the University of New Mexico, USA. Her research in theoretical/computational photonics focuses on conceiving new photonic structured materials for extra-ordinary light control across the electromagnetic spectrum. She has authored more than thirty journal publications and conference papers and holds a US patent. Stavroula currently serves as an Associate Editor for Optical Materials Express as well as for the Journal of the European Optical Society: Rapid Publications (JEOS-RP). She is also a Chair of the annual SPIE conference Active Photonic Platforms. In 2016 she was recognized by the American Physical Society as an outstanding referee.

Stephen H. Foulger

Stephen H. Foulger received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA in 1990 and a Ph.D. in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA in 1996. He served as a polymer scientist in the Division of Research, Development & Engineering of the Italian company Pirelli Tyres/Cables & Systems prior to joining the faculty of Clemson University, USA in 1999 as an Assistant Professor. He is currently the Gregg-Graniteville Endowed Professor in Engineering at Clemson, and the current Director of the Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies. His recent research has focused on the use of novel colloidal systems for optical applications. In 2012, Stephen received a joint appointment in the Department of Bioengineering in recognition of the multitude of efforts being pursued in his group that focus on bio-related science and technologies. He has served on the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2016.

Newton C. Frateschi

Newton C. Frateschi obtained his Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, USA, and his Bachelor’s and Master’s in physics from IFGW–UNICAMP, Brazil. He was a Senior Optoelectronic Designer at T-Networks Inc., USA in the advanced photonic device technology group before returning to UNICAMP in 2005. He is currently the Executive Director of the Inova-UNICAMP: Unicamp Innovation Agency. He is a Brazilian National Research and Development Council research fellow leading the Device Research Laboratory and the author and coauthor of over 100 scientific papers and several international patents primarily in the areas of optoelectronics and photonics. He has been a member of the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2015.

Mark Fox

Mark Fox obtained his D.Phil. in physics from Oxford University, UK in 1987. After post-doctoral work at AT&T Bell Laboratories, he was a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Oxford until 1998, when he took up his present post as a Reader in Physics at Sheffield University, UK. His research interests include low-dimensional semiconductor structures, quantum optics and ultrafast laser spectroscopy. He has served on the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2015.

Eunkyoung Kim

Eunkyoung Kim received her B.S. in chemistry from Yonsei University, South Korea in 1982, a Master's in chemistry from Seoul National University, South Korea in 1984, and her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Houston, USA in 1990. She worked for the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology in Daejeon from 1992 to 2004, and since then she has been a professor of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Yonsei University. Her work has primarily focused on the development of functional polymers including chromogenic polymers (photochromic and electrochromic), photopolymers, and transport issues in bio-engineering and organic electronics. She has been recognized with numerous awards and distinctions including the AMOREPACIFIC Award for Outstanding Women in the Sciences (2009), the Samsung Polymer Award from The Polymer Society of Korea (2014), the Underwood Distinguished Professorship from Yonsei University (2014), and Doctor Honoris Causa from ENS Cashan, France (2015). She is currently the Director of the Active Polymer Center for Pattern Integration at Yonsei University and was elected as a 2018 chair for the American Chemical Society’s South Korea Chapter. She guest-edited an Optical Materials Express feature on Organic and Polymeric Materials for Photonic Applications and has been a member of the editorial board since 2016.

Sunao Kurimura

Sunao Kurimura received his Ph.D. in engineering from Waseda University, Japan. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, USA from 1997 to 1999, and joined the Institute for Molecular Science, Japan as a Research Associate in 1999. He has been a Principal Researcher of the National Institute for Materials Science, Japan and held concurrent positions as a Professor in Waseda University/Kyushu University, Japan. He received the Funai Information Science Promotion Award in 2008 and Laser Society Achievement Award in 2013 for his contribution to polarity-reversed nonlinear optics. He is one of the pioneers of E-field poling in LN/LT, and of E-field poling in Mg:LN and SLT, as well as mechanical twinning in quartz. His recent research interests include nonlinear optical bulk/waveguide devices with quasi-phase matching, quantum-optic devices by parametric processes, multi-order photonic integration, light sources for laser display, hybrid silicon photonics, and integrated electro-optic devices for high-speed switching. He has served as Associate Editor of Optical Materials Express since 2016, was a committee member for Advanced Solid State Lasers 2017, and acted as Program Co-Chair of the Laser Display and Lighting Conference 2017.

Christos Markos

Christos Markos received his B.Eng. in 2007 and M.Sc. (with distinction) in 2008 from University of Liverpool, UK in electrical engineering and electronics. He continued his studies at the National Hellenic Research Foundation, Greece and received his Ph.D. in optics/optoelectronics in July 2013. The same year he was awarded the Hans Christian Ørsted fellowship and moved to Technical University of Denmark. His research is in experimental optics and materials science focusing on chalcogenide glasses and hybrid optical fibers towards the development of novel sensing and tunable devices. He has worked with several distinguished research groups in the USA and Europe such as the Multi-material Optical Fiber Devices Group at CREOL (College of Optics and Photonics), USA and Mid-Infrared Photonics Group at the University of Nottingham, UK. He currently holds the position of Researcher and he is responsible for the Glass and Draw Tower Laboratories in the Fiber Sensors and Supercontinuum Group at DTU Fotonik, Denmark. He has published more than seventy journal articles and conference papers and is a member of both OSA and SPIE. He has served on the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2017.

Daniel Milanese

Daniel Milanese earned his Ph.D. in materials engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Italy in 2001 and has served as Associate Professor at Politecnico di Torino, Italy since 2002. He is Deputy Coordinator of the interdepartmental laboratory Photonext at Politecnico di Torino, Italy. His research interests include the design, fabrication and characterization of photonic glasses and optical fibers for lasers and amplifiers in the near infrared wavelength region, and more recently fibers for biophotonic applications. He is author of more than 110 peer-reviewed papers and two European patents. He participated in several regional and national research projects and he is MC Member for Italy of the EU-COST MP1401 project “Advanced Fibre Laser and Coherent Sources as Tools for Society, Manufacturing and Lifescience”. He is a member of The Optical Society, the European Optical Society, the American Ceramic Society and the European Technology Platform Photonics 21. He led an Optical Materials Express feature on Multimaterial and Multifunctional Optical Fibers and has served as Associate Editor for the Journal since 2015.

Natalia Noginova

Natalia Noginova is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Center for Materials Research at Norfolk State University, USA. Her current research interests are in plasmonics and metamaterials, where she made pioneering contributions to the topics of plasmon drag effect and magnetic dipole emission enhancement with plasmonic nanostructures. Her scientific expertise also includes optical spectroscopy of rare earth ions and magnetic resonance studies of magnetization dynamics at the nanoscale. She has published about 100 papers and presented more than 140 conference talks and invited presentations. She participated in the development and implementation of the Ph.D. Program in Materials Science and Engineering at NSU, including development and teaching of a new course on advanced nanomaterials. Natalia has served on the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2016.

Nicolae C. Panoiu

Nicolae C. Panoiu received his B.Sc. and M.S. in physics from the University of Bucharest, Romania, in 1990 and 1992, respectively, and his Ph.D. from New York University, USA, in 2001. After graduating from NYU, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University, USA. He is currently Reader in Nanophotonics at University College London, UK. His research interests include silicon photonics, optical properties of photonic nanostructures and metamaterials, and computational modeling of nanophotonic devices. Nicolae has served on the program committee for Frontiers in Optics, guest-edited feature issues in Optics Express, and has been a member of the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2016.

Peter Pauzauskie

Peter Pauzauskie completed a Ph.D. in experimental physical chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, USA in 2007. He was a DOE Lawrence Fellow in the Chemical Sciences Division of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA and currently has a joint appointment between the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Washington, USA. His research is centered on the synthesis, characterization, and numerical modeling of nanoscale optoelectronic materials with well-defined point-defect microstructure for applications in the laser refrigeration of solids. His group is designing rare-earth point-defects within crystalline host materials that absorb near-infrared laser radiation and then emit up-converted/blue-shifted photoluminescence that refrigerates both the host crystal's lattice, and also the ambient environment. Recently, Peter’s group demonstrated it is possible to refrigerate liquid water surrounding LiYF4 nanocrystals, and observed the cold Brownian motion of colloidal nanocrystals. Peter has been a member of the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2015.

John P. Prineas

John P. Prineas earned his B.A. in physics from Carleton College, USA, and his Ph.D. in physics from The University of Arizona, USA, where he studied light-matter coupling in semiconductor heterostructures. After doing research at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Germany, as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, he joined the faculty at the University of Iowa, USA in 2001. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy there, has a secondary appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and is a faculty member of the Optical Science and Technology Center. Additionally, he is Director of the Molecular Beam Epitaxy Facility, Associate Editor for Optical Materials Express, and President of Firefly Photonics LLC. John is a Senior Member of The Optical Society, and a member of both the American Physical Society and IEEE.

Alessandro Salandrino

Alessandro Salandrino received his “Laurea Magistralis” degree in electrical engineering with a specialization in applied electromagnetics, from the University of Rome RomaTre, Italy. After graduating with a Ph.D. in optics and photonics from CREOL, USA, he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California Berkeley, USA as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. His main research interests are in nanophotonics, with a particular emphasis on nano-structured systems such as metamaterials and plasmonic devices. Among his main contributions to the field of nanophotonics are the invention of a far-field subdiffraction imaging system known as “Hyperlens”, and the introduction of Airy Plasmons, a class of diffraction-free surface plasmon polaritons. He is the author of twenty-one peer-reviewed articles and holds three U.S. patents. He has been a member of the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2015.

Kenneth L. Schepler

Kenneth L. Schepler was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Air Force after receiving his B.S. in physics from Michigan State University, USA in 1971. During an academic delay, he earned his Master’s, and Ph.D., also in physics, from The University of Michigan, USA. During six years of active duty in the Air Force he investigated the bioeffects of laser radiation at the School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB TX and evaluated test data at the Air Force Technical Applications Center, McClellan AFB CA. In 1981 he joined the Avionics Laboratory [now the Air Force Research Laboratory] at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and served there as a research physicist for over 32 years. He retired in January 2014 and is now a Research Professor (courtesy faculty) at CREOL, USA. His interests include solid state laser physics, laser materials spectroscopy, and nonlinear frequency conversion. Ken is a Fellow of The Optical Society and a Fellow of the Air Force Research Lab. He was a member of the editorial board of Applied Optics from 2007 to 2013, has guest-edited feature issues in Optics Express and Optical Materials Express and has served as Associate Editor for Optical Materials Express since 2014.

Xing Sheng

Xing Sheng received his Bachelor’s from Tsinghua University, China and his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at Tsinghua University. His current research is focused on advanced optoelectronic materials and devices for energy and biomedical applications. He has served on the editorial board of Optical Materials Express since 2017.

Philippe Smet

Philippe Smet is Associate Professor at Ghent University, Belgium, appointed in the field of physics and chemistry of condensed matter. Together with Dirk Poelman, he runs the LumiLab research group within the Faculty of Sciences, focusing on luminescent or light emitting materials, which can be used for solid state lighting (e.g. white LEDs), emergency signage (based on glow-in-the-dark materials) or the more exotic mechanoluminescence (where pressure induces the emission of light). Currently, energy storage in luminescent materials is one of his main research targets. He teaches several courses at UGent, ranging from general physics for undergraduate students to an elective Master’s course on Luminescence. He is also involved in the teacher education program for physics. Science communication has become a significant part of his activities. These efforts were recognized with the Hermes Award at Ghent University (2015) and a year prize from the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB Jaarprijs Wetenschapscommunicatie 2016). He was a guest editor of an Optical Materials Express feature on Persistent Phosphors and has been a member of the editorial board since 2014.

Fabien Sorin

Fabien Sorin studied physics at Ecole Polytechnique, France, and obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Materials Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. After 3 years at the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, he joined the company Saint-Gobain as a Research Scientist in Aubervilliers, France. In 2013, he joined the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, as an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Materials. His research interests include the nanoscale fabrication of advanced electronic and photonic devices within one-dimensional multi-material optical fibers and two-dimensional flexible and stretchable substrates. He guest-edited an Optical Materials Express feature on Multimaterial and Multifunctional Optical Fibers and has been a member of the editorial board since 2015.

Victor Ya. Zyryanov

Victor Zyryanov studied physics at Krasnoyarsk State University (now Siberian Federal University), Russia and received his Ph.D. in optics from the Kirensky Institute of Physics, Russia where he currently serves as Head of the Laboratory for Molecular Spectroscopy. His research interests include electrooptical materials, liquid crystals, polymer dispersed liquid crystals, photonic crystals, and surface phenomena. He is currently a member of the Society for Information Display and the Russian chapter of the international liquid-crystal society “Sodruzhestvo.” He worked on an Optical Materials Express feature on colloidal systems and has served on the editorial board since 2017.

Alexandra Boltasseva, Editor-in-Chief

Optical Materials Express

Purdue University