The aim of ECIO is to provide a forum where experts within integrated optics and nanophotonics can exchange their new ideas and latest findings. ECIO covers research in the fields of modeling, design, fabrication, packaging and applications of Photonic ICs. It  includes research on new and existing materials and devices and addresses a broad range of applications, including telecommunications, signal processing, bio-medicine, sensors and instrumentation. 

ECIO’08 is organised for the second time in the Netherlands. In 1995 it was organised in Delft, partially by the same team that is now organizing it in Eindhoven. 

Eindhoven is the high-tech center of the Netherlands, with many companies active in the fields of electronics, opto-electronics and telecommunications, including optical communication. The Eindhoven University of Technology with its COBRA Research Institute, which is organising ECIO’08, is the Dutch Acadamic Research Center in the field of Broadband Telecommunication Technologies and Semiconductor-based Photonic Integration.

Integrated Optics, or Photonic Integration as it is presently often called, goes through a number of important and exciting developments today. Where for a long time commercial application has been restricted to lithium-niobate and passive dielectric components and circuits, today also more complex semiconductor-based photonic ICs are entering the more commercial application stage. Further, important developments are taking place at the interface between CMOS technology and photonics. And in the field of optical communications a potential mass market is breaking through: Fibre-to-the-Home. Important developments are also taking place in the field of nanophotonics, both in Photonic-Crystal and membrane based research, as well as in Plasmonics.

All these developments will be covered by 21 eminent invited speakers, and in 80 selected oral and poster contributions.

This year, ECIO is combined with three other important events, which make visiting ECIO even more attractive:

• The Annual Meeting of the ePIXnet Network of Excellence, with which ECIO has a joint workshop on Industrial Manufacturing and Business Models for Photonic ICs on Tuesday afternoon
• The Optical Workshop on Waveguide Theory and Numerical Modeling (OWTNM), with which ECIO has a joint session on Friday
• The international FIB Workshop

Meint Smit and Jos van der Tol
Conference Chairs