West Lake Photonics Symposium at Zhejiang University with World-leading Scientists

On November 7, the West Lake Photonics Symposium was held at Zhejiang University. This top-notch symposium attracted a galaxy of eminent scientists in the domain of photonics from around the world.

One of the keynote speakers is Prof. Sune Svanberg, who is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Prof. Svanberg has been working in China since his retirement from the Nobel Committee for Physics. In Sweden, he owned a green automobile armed with a container in which there was a mobile LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system. He did transport this vehicle to China, but this mobile laboratory failed to be operated for a particular reason. He then created a blue vehicle which has been applied to a wide spectrum of fields, such as monitoring contaminants, screening pests, and even assisting surgery on patients with pancreatic cancer.

Prof. Svanberg also drove this vehicle to the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty because legend has it that the emperor was so keen on alchemy that he died of mercury poisoning. “How come it happened? I think I can verify the authenticity of this legend by detecting and analyzing mercury in the mausoleum,” said Prof. Svanberg. His system did “sniff out” mercury in the mausoleum. Relevant data are currently being sorted out. If the amount of mercury reaches a specified standard, this legend may well hold water.

Also present at the symposium was Prof. Yuen-Ron Shen who is a fellow of the American National Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American National Academy of Sciences and an emeritus professor of UC Berkeley. He delivered a special speech for participants. In his speech, he presented an exceptionally poetic example about twinkling stars. When stars pass through air, they are communicating with mankind in a visual manner. As air is fluid, it will thus give us a feeling that stars are “blinking” their sparkling eyes.

But how can we figure out the precise position of a particular star?

When a beam of laser light is sent to the sky, it will produce fluorescence because of the sodium layer in the sky. When this beam is sent back, it will become a man-made star. People can clearly see the impact of clouds on the man-made star, thus able to identify its shape. In this way, people can also depict the precise position and shape of a real star.