The AiPT research seminars bring together international experts and AiPT staff, fostering an environment of knowledge sharing and discovery across a range of diverse topics. The AiPT research seminars continue to promote scientific dialogue and engagement among the global research community, ensuring that AiPT remains at the forefront of innovation and discovery in the fields of photonics and telecommunications.
AIPT Upcoming Seminars in 2026
Speaker: Andrei V. Ermolaev
Affiliation: FEMTO-ST Institute (CNRS)
Title: Power law scaling for classification performance in physical neural networks
Time: 15 October, Thursday from 11:00am to 12:00pm
Venue: NW708, MS Teams
Abstract:Physical neural networks (PNNs) utilise the intrinsic complexity of physical systems to perform computations, potentially achieving speed and energy efficiency inaccessible to conventional digital hardware. However, to date, no general methodology has been developed to quantitatively assess and predict the performance of such computing across diverse substrates. In this talk, I will introduce the Hotelling Trace Criterion (HTC), a task-dependent measure of the separability of PNN states that can be estimated without training. We have recently demonstrated that HTC can accurately predict the classification performance of PNNs based on highly nonlinear optical fibres, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, as well as networks of coupled nonlinear oscillators (CNON), for benchmark tasks of varying complexity. Classification loss has been shown to follow a power-law relationship with HTC, with Pearson correlation coefficients of |r| ≈ 0.99 for MNIST and ≈ 0.97 for Fashion MNIST. It is noteworthy that experimental and simulated data from physically distinct systems collapse onto a single scaling curve determined by the task rather than by substrate. Applying HTC layer by layer during training of the multilayer CNON PNN further reveals that gradient-based optimisation distributes representational capacity unevenly across PNN layers, highlighting that HTC provides a quantitative diagnostic of training efficiency that is invisible to standard loss monitoring. These results establish HTC as a substrate-agnostic metric for comparing and scaling PNNs, advancing the field towards a complete theory connecting fundamental hardware parameters to task performance through universal scaling laws.
Past Seminars
Speaker: Dr Tatiana Novikova, LPICM, Ecole Polytechnique, IP Paris, Palaiseau, France
Title: Polarized light imaging of brain: Insights for tumor neurosurgery
Date: 19 August 2026
Speaker: Assoc Prof. Lin Xu, Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), University of Southampton
Title: Advances in Hollow‑Core Fibre Technology for High‑Power and Ultrafast Laser Systems
Date: 26 June 2026
Speaker: Prof Dr Dirk Pleiter, CogniGron, University of Groningen (IPHT) in Jena
Title: System-level modelling of neuromorphic computing systems
Date: 11 June 2026
Speaker: Dr Alexander Doronin, CogniGron, School of Engineering and Computer Science at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Title: Neuromorphic Photon Transport for Emerging Biomedical Optical Modalities
Date: 03 June 2026
Speaker: Prof Dr Tomáš Čižmár, Wave Optics at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena & and Head of the Fibre Research and Technology department of the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT) in Jena
Title: Seeing anywhere in the brain through 100mm thin glass fibre
Date: 27 May 2026
Speaker: Sir David N Payne, Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton
Title: “Nothing” is Better than Silica
Date: 06 May 2026
Speaker: Professor Anna C. Peacock, University of Southampton
Title: Recent advances in silicon core optical fibres: from fabrication to applications
Date: 29 April 2026
Speaker: Prof Daniele Faccio, University of Glasgow
Title: Artificial and biological networks with possible connections to theories of consciousness.
Date: 10 March 2026
Speaker: Prof Varuna De Silva, Loughborough University
Title: From Spikes to Waves: Advancing Neuromorphic Reservoir Computing Across Modalities and Physics
Date: 6 March 2026
Speaker: Dr Francesco Da Ros, DTU
Title: Integrated photonic computing – from matrix-vector multipliers to reservoir computing
Date: 16 February 2026
Speaker: Dr Daniel Elson, KDDI
Title: O-Band Multicore Transmission and Modelling at KDDI
Date: 12 February 2026
Speaker: Prof Steve Furber, University of Manchester, UK
Title: The SpiNNaker Project
Date: 9 December 2025
Speaker: Dr Neil Kemp, University of Nottingham
Title: Optical Memristors for Neuromorphic Computing: From Light-Sensitive Materials to Ultrafast Chips
Date: 27 November 2025
Speaker:Prof Camilo Arturo Rodriguez Diaz, Federal University of Espírito Santo, ES, Brazil and Prof Carlos Andres Cifuentes Garcia, University of the West of England, Bristol.
Title: Bridging Robotics and Photonics: Advancing Enabling Technologies for Future Healthcare
Date: 25 November 2025
Speaker: Prof Tony Kenyon, Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, University College London
Title: Engineering SiOx memristors for neuromorphic applications.
Date: 24 November 2025
Speaker: Prof Francois Leo, University of Brussels
Title:Temporal solitons in coherently driven resonators
Date: 13 November 2025
Speaker: Dr Aamir Farooq, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia
Title:Laser-based Sensing for Industrial and Environmental Applications
Date: 26 September 2025
Speaker: Alexandros Gerakis, Luxembourg Institute of Science & Technology (LIST)
Title:Non-resonant four wave mixing techniques for the thermodynamic characterization of neutrals, ions, electrons and nanoparticles in a gas discharge.
Date: 22 September 2025
Speaker: Prof Lorenzo Pavesi, University of Trento, Italy
Title:From Neural Interfaces to Computing Paradigm”s
Date:18 September 2025
Speaker: Dr Le Thanh Hai, The Saigon International University, Vietnam
Title: Temperature Measuring Headband for Children
Date: 17 July 2025
Speaker: Nguyen Huu Duc Minh, The Saigon International University, Vietnam
Title: A Comparative Study of Cervical and Shoulder ROM in Healthy Adults in Vietnam and the UK Using the Revolution AI – Integrated Photogrammetric System ROMIX
Date: 17 July 2025
Speaker: Prof Pham Thi Thu Hien, The Saigon International University, Vietnam
Title: Artificial Intelligence in Cancer Diagnosis and Medical Device Design: Data Integration – Solutions – Applications
Date: 16 July 2025
Speaker: Prof Martin Booth, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Title: Adaptive laser writing for three-dimensional precision fabrication of functional devices
Date: 11 July 2025
Speaker: Gavrielle Untrach, Technical University of Denmark in the Department of Health Technology
Title: Potential of spatially offset optical coherence tomography (SO-OCT) for biomedical imaging
Date: 24 June 2025
Speaker: Dr Eliot Gillum, SETI Institute
Title: LaserSETI: All-Sky, All-the-Time Optical SETI
Date: 16 May 2025
Speaker: Prof Harald Haas, Cambridge University
Title: Recent Advances in Light-Based Wireless Networking
Date: 28 April 2025
Speaker: Adjunct Prof Regina Gumenyuk, Tampere University
Title: Harnessing the power and structure of light
Date: 24 April 2025
Speaker: Dr George Dwapanyin, University of St. Andrews
Title: Looking Through the Glass: Raman Spectroscopy of Concealed Samples in Sealed Containers Using Shaped Laser Light
Date: 14 April 2025
Speaker: Prof Anatoly Zayats, King’s College London
Title: Ultrafast and Nonlinear Plasmonics
Date: 19 March 2025
Speaker: Prof Callum Littlejohns, ORC Southampton
Title: Silicon Photonics
Date: 18 March 2025
Speaker: Prof Logan Wright, Yale University, Department of Applied Physics
Title: The High-Dimensional Future of Light
Date: 11 March 2025
Speaker: Dr Abderrahmen Trichili, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford
Title: Understanding Optical Wireless Channels Using a Visible Light Sounder
Date: 20 February 2025
Speaker: Dr Andreas Wuestefeld, Technology Lead – Fiber Optics, NORSAR
Title: Applications of Fibre Sensing for Solving Modern Societal Challenges
Date: 18 February 2025
Speaker: Prof Arnaud Mussot, University of Lille
Title: Broadband and stable frequency combs in high quality factor fiber Fabry Perot resonators
Date: 6 February 2025
Speaker: Dr Giulia Marcucci, University of Glasgow
Title: Riding the Wave of Green Change: Advancing Wave-Based Analog Reservoir Computing for Sustainable AI
Date: 9 January 2025
Speaker: Dr Julia Lehman, University of Birmingham
Title: Mid-Infrared Frequency Comb Spectroscopy: Spectrometer Development and Applications in Chemistry
Date: 8 January 2025
Speaker: Dr Angeles Camacho Rosales, Coractive Inc, Canada
Title: Specialty Optical Fiber Technologies, Industrial Overview
Date: 20 November 2024
Speaker: Dr Antonio Hurtado, UKRI Turing AI Fellow, Institute of Photonics, Dept of Physics, University of Strathclyde
Title: Photonic Spiking Neurons and Spiking Neural Networks for High-Speed Neuromorphic Technologies
Date: 20 November 2024
Speaker: Assoc Prof Ugur Tegin, Koç University, Turkey
Title: Tunable and Scalable Optical Computing with Linear and Nonlinear Optical Dynamics
Date: 18 November 2024
Speaker: Prof Alina Karabchevsky, Ben-Gurion University (BGU)
Title: Advancing Light-Matter Interaction with Photonic Chips
Date: 24 October 2024
Speaker: Prof Massimiliano Guasoni, ORC Southampton
Title: Optically Reconfigurable Photonics in Optical Fibers
Date: 23 October 2024
Speaker: Prof Sahin Özdemir, Saint Louis University, USA
Title: Non-Hermiticity as a Resource for Photonics
Date: 16 October 2024
Speaker: Prof Takeshi Yasui, Institute of Post-LED Photonics (pLED), Tokushima University, Japan
Title: Century of Light” Pioneered by Invisible Light
Date: 30 September 2024
Speaker: Dr Yu Tokizane, Institute of Post-LED Photonics (pLED), Tokushima University, Japan
Title: Wireless Communication Utilizing Terahertz Waves Generated Through a Kerr Micro-Resonator Soliton Comb
Date: 30 September 2024
Speaker: Dr Eiji Hase, Institute of Post-LED Photonics (pLED), Tokushima University, Japan
Title: Application of Dual-Comb Technique for Scan-less Confocal Imaging of Amplitude and Phase
Date: 30 September 2024
Speaker: Prof Pavlo Mikheenko, University of Oslo, Norway
Title: Nanosuperconductivity and Nanophotonics in Biological Systems
Date: 19 September 2024
Speaker: Prof Julien Javaloyes, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain
Title: Coherence and Multiplicity of Frequency Combs in Harmonic Mode-Locked Lasers
Date: 19 July 2024
Speaker: Andrey Matsko, California Institute of Technology (CalTech), USA
Title: Theory and Applications of Hyperparametric Microwave Photonic Oscillators
Date: 4 June 2024
Speaker: Professor Daniel Elson, Imperial College London
Title: Spectrally- and Polarization-Resolved Imaging In Vivo – Providing Surgical Guidance Using Vision and Robotics
Date: 16 May 2024
Speaker: Prof Francesco Pavone, University of Florence
Title: Morpho-Chemical Tissue Imaging
Date: 9 May 2024
Speaker: Dr Victoria Barygina, University of Florence
Title: Skin Signaling: A Study in Controlled Cell Co-Cultures and Detection In Vivo
Date: 9 May 2024
Speaker: Dr Mitchell Cox, PhD (Wits), SMIEEE, Optica Ambassador
Title: Towards Long Range Free-Space Optical Communications at the Wits OC Lab
Date: 30 April 2024
Speaker: Professor Juergen Popp, Friedrich-Schiller University; Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology Jena
Title: Raman Spectroscopy for Translational Medicine
Date: 15 April 2024
Speaker: Dr Pedro Parra-Rivas, Università La Sapienza, Roma, Italy
Title: From Temporal to Spatiotemporal Dissipative Solitons: A Bifurcation Journey in Optical Resonators
Date: 7 March 2024
Speaker: Dr Feng Wen, Key Lab of Optical Fiber Sensing and Communications, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Title: Signal Processing Technologies in Mode Division Multiplexing Systems
Date: 20 February 2024
Speaker: Dr Maria Chernysheva, Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Jena, Germany
Title: Trends and Prospectives of Ultrafast Fibre Laser Development and Applications in Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology
Date: 19 February 2024
Speaker: Dr Kouichi Akahane, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan
Title: Semiconductor Quantum Dot Lasers Operating in the Telecom Band
Date: 25 January 2024
AiPT Seminar Series
The AiPT team organises a series of scientific seminars covering a wide range of topics, from experimental and theoretical challenges in photonics to industrial applications. If you are interested in collaborating with our team and would like to deliver a talk, please contact the AiPT Seminar Chair, Dr Auro Perego, at a.perego1@aston.ac.uk