Our Python repositories Octopus-slabs and SPP-extended-theory are going through a makeover!

• Transition to Python3 was finally made.
• Then the codes were packaged for Conda and Pip.
• Our codes can now be distributed and used in any environment.

From Friday 5th of February 2021, QuantumLaP.eu becomes the Group of Ultrafast Photonics, lead by T. J.-Y. Derrien. The group is a part of the Department of Scientific Laser Applications led by prof. Bulgakova, and is hosted by the HiLASE Centre (T. Mocek), part of the Institute of Physics.

The group is presently kindly funded by Horizon 2020 project Center of Excellence (T. Mocek), and by the National Excellent BIATRI project (prof. Bulgakova).

The group is presently counting 1 PhD student MSc. Krystof Hlinomaz who has been focusing at laser-irradiated thin films. The group is meant to grow in the next months with:

• Hiring a new PhD student focusing on TDDFT in 2021,
• Applying to ERC consolidator grants (deadline 20th April 2021).

The group is heading towards developing the processing of materials using ultrashort laser pulses, being fully assisted by first principle simulations and condensed matter physics. More details will be disclosed along the year.

Our predictions of optimal wavelength for preparing Highly-Regular Laser-Induced Periodic Surface Structures (HR-LIPSS) on metals [Sci. Rep. (2017)] have been confirmed experimentally for the case of Cu at 515 nm. The proof is visible in Fig. 4 in Nanomaterials (MDPI).

The concept and the laser process have been subjected to EU protection, a patent that was granted recently to the Institute of Physics (HiLASE Centre), available at this address.

Our paper in Scientific Reports became the first “Highly Cited” paper of HiLASE Centre. Nice achievement!

On July 31st 2020, we have requested 7 million core-hours (for 18 months) at the IT4I.cz computational infrastructure:

• to support the group of prof. Bulgakova at the HiLASE Centre, with simulation based on the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT);
• to support the Horizon 2020 Marie Curie project RISE named “ATLANTIC“.

The computational project is meant to provide computational support and the development of the activities based on first-principles modeling at the HiLASE Centre and at the Institute of Physics.

Update: On September 2020, the first phase of the project has been provided with 2.3 million core-hours over the requested 3.5 millions for this period. The second period will be managed in 9 months. Due to very high demand, all projects have been subjected to computational time reduction.

As a drummer, music producer and laser scientist, I can only be delighted to see that our paper in Scientific Reports has recently been cited in a publication of the Audio Engineering Society. to write vinyl disks using laser light.

Unfortunately, the paper is quite unreachable (I even emailed the authors – no answer). I would have access to it, I would be glad to discuss it with you!

Our activities are touched by the situation with COVID. Of course, we continue to honor simulation requests the best we can meanwhile.

However, all workshops, seminars and conferences have been canceled since March, and still at the time of writing these lines. Therefore, no conference will be attended before Oct. 2020, at minimum.

List of seminars affected by the reduction of gathering activities.

• Postponed to 2021 – High Power Laser Ablation conference, Santa Fe (USA).
• Canceled – Visit at University of California, Merced (USA).
• Postponed – 1 month stay at University of Mendoza (Argentina) for Atlantic project.
• Postponed – Invited talk at the Advanced Lasers Technologies conference, Bordeaux (France).
• Remote – 2 invited talks in Ultrafast Light 2020, Moscow (Russia).

We hope that the crisis will be resolved soon, enabling a smooth return to scientific exchanges.

Following our publication on highly-regular periodic surface structures in metals, a fruitful collaboration driven by Dr. Petr Kovaricek (UCT Prague), Dr. Inam Mirza (HiLASE FZU Prague) and prof. N. M. Bulgakova (HiLASE FZU Prague) was born and was recently published in Nano Research (Springer), IF 8.5.

I’m happy to have contributed to the numerical simulation part using a phenomenological model we have developed in the frame of MSCA “QuantumLaP” project.

Manuscript can be found behind paywall here.

Active discussion at the NVIDIA IT4I event (Ostrava)

In the context of the Marie Curie ATLANTIC project, I could benefit from 2 days training in CUDA and OpenACC. This knowledge is today essential for harvesting the power of high power computers nowadays. Pictures of the event are available here.

Group picture with other attendees of the school.

I have accepted to seat as an associate editor of Optics Express (Optical Society of America). I’m happy to start having editorial activities.

Tweet from the Optical Society of America is available here.

It seems the news may be also available in Optics and Photonics News of January 2020.