Since the invention of lasers, the response of materials to laser radiation has been intensively explored. The exposure of matter to high fluence conditions has been shown to produce nonlinear optical phenomena such as nonlinear absorption, refraction and multiphoton absorption. Materials science for laser applications has focused on areas like dye synthesis, isotropic optical slab fabrication, polymer hosts and semiconductors. Advanced materials fabrication has made possible new classes of nonlinear materials, including organic glasses with very long excited state lifetimes, organic polymers that have strong infrared optical response, metalenses, optofluidic materials and semiconductor glasses. These materials respond identically when the source and observer are interchanged. Non-reciprocal photonic materials break this constraint and make possible optical devices that operate in one direction. Optical platforms having asymmetric behavior are possible, including optical diodes, beam steering devices and high performance holograms. Modern fabrication technology makes possible materials with polarization and propagation control on the subwavelength scale, for example nonhermitian flat lenses and micron-scale optical diodes. There is a need for machine learning strategies and beam propagation modeling methods that solve the problem of converting user specifications into a flat lens design as well as the reverse problem of inventing new simple design principles enabling users to design a flat lens system towards their specifications. Addressing this challenge will require the investigation of light-matter interactions, advancement of theoretical modeling, as well as the development of synthesis, processing and fabrication methodologies. This symposium will focus on recent developments and advances in light-responding materials, characterization techniques, new simulation methods, machine learning, prediction of optical effects, and novel applications. New devices utilizing recently discovered optical phenomena are also of interest to this symposium.

luminescence nanoscale optical optical properties optoelectronic organic organometallic polymer