IDL 2025

The annual celebration of the International Day of Light is back! This year, we will hold a seminar and invite distinguished speakers from academia to industry. The event will be held on Saturday, 17 May 2025. You can learn more about the event and register from the link below. See you at the event!

17 May, Saturday

📌Cavid Erginsoy Seminar Room - METU Physics Department

🕘 Time: 09.45 a.m. - 18.00 p.m.

📅 Date: 17 May Saturday

The Registration desk will be open at 09.00 a.m.

Application Deadline: May 14 for external participants - May 16 for METU students

REGISTERATION

RUNDOWN

9.45-10.45 Mustafa Gündoğan, Humboldt University of Berlin

10.45-11.00 Kahve Molası

11.00-12.00 ASELSAN Optik ve Optomekanik Tasarım Ekibi + Mekanik ve Optik Üretim Teknolojileri Geliştirme Ekibi Sunum

12.00-12.30 ASELSAN Optik ve Optomekanik Tasarım Ekibi + Mekanik ve Optik Üretim Teknolojileri Geliştirme Ekibi Panel

12.30-12.45 Rana Akyazı, METU Undergrad, 2025 Optica Women Scholar

13.00-14.00 Öğle Arası

14.00-15.00 Figen S. Öktem, METU (METU OPTICA Student Chapter Advisor)

15.00-15.15 Kahve Molası

15.15-16.15 Bilge İmer, METU

16.15-17.15 ASELSAN Mikro-elektronik Tasarım Ekibi Sunumu

17.15-17.45 ASELSAN Mikro-elektronik Tasarım Ekibi Panel

17.45-18.30 Kapanış ve Kutlama

SPEAKERS

Assoc. Prof Bilge İmer
DEPARTMENT OF METALLURGICAL AND MATERIALS ENGINEERING

Ph.D. University of California Santa Barbara, CA-USA (2006)
M.S. University of California Santa Barbara, CA-USA (2006)
B.S. University of Pittsburgh, PA – USA (Transferred from Middle East Technical University, Turkey (2000)

Thin film material (functional coatings, device structure) growth
Bulk crystal growth
Device and nano-structured materials clean-room processing, modeling, simulation and testing

Assoc. Prof Figen S. Öktem
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

Imaging the Unseen: Physics-Aware AI for Computational Imaging

Abstract:

How can we see what traditional cameras cannot? Computational imaging is an interdisciplinary field that merges physics, mathematics, and computer science to unlock new ways of seeing—from imaging inside the human body to reconstructing scenes through walls or around corners. Rather than relying solely on conventional optics, computational imaging uses indirect measurements and algorithmic reconstruction to form images by solving inverse problems. In this talk, I will introduce the fundamentals of computational imaging and explore how deep learning is revolutionizing the field. We will focus on recent physics-informed approaches that integrate physical models with neural networks to achieve efficient, accurate, and interpretable image reconstructions. Drawing from applications in optics and microwave imaging, I will share examples from our research that demonstrate how combining domain knowledge with data- driven learning can lead to systems that are both powerful and practical. The talk is intended for students from various backgrounds, and aims to inspire new ways of thinking about imaging, information, and the future of intelligent sensing.

Dr. Figen S. Oktem is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at METU, where she leads the Signal Processing And ComputationalsEnsing (SPACE) Lab. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees from Bilkent University and her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Prior to joining METU in 2015, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, working on novel computational spectral imaging methods for high-resolution solar observations.
Her research interests span computational imaging, inverse problems, machine learning, statistical signal processing, compressed sensing, and optical information processing. In particular, she develops physics-informed, data-driven methods for advanced imaging systems and sensing applications.
Dr. Oktem received the 2025 BAGEP Young Scientist Award from the Science Academy, Turkey. At UIUC, she was awarded the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, the Professor Kung Chie Yeh Endowed Fellowship, and was listed among “Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students”. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging, and is an active member of IEEE, Optica, and EURASIP.

Dr. Mustafa Gündoğan

Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

New frontiers with old friends: towards quantum memories in space

Abstract:

Stopping light -the fastest thing in the universe- sounds like science fiction. Yet, nearly 25 years have passed since its first laboratory demonstration. Soon after, it became clear that this remarkable achievement could enable numerous applications, particularly in quantum information science and communications. In this talk, I will discuss the history of slow and stopped light experiments and how the same physical systems now allow new frontiers to be explored - from large-scale entanglement tests in space to using microgravity as a resource to enhance the performance of such memory devices. I will also present our experiments in which we have demonstrated the first implementation of these experiments outside a controlled laboratory setting.