Optics & Photonics News - February 2010

held again in 2005 and 2007, respectively, with even greater success.

OSK has built up solid networks among optical societies overseas. OSA was one of the first overseas societies with which the OSK shared a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for collaboration. OSA has regularly sent its delegates to OSK annual meetings to further enhance mutual understanding and friendship. OSK also has an MOU with SPIE, the Chinese Optical Society and the Optical Society of Japan, and it is co-sponsoring local and international workshops and conferences.

OSK’s rapid growth is a direct result
of the dedication of its members, who
have helped foster optical research and
applications throughout the country.
For example, the number of papers writ-
ten by Korean authors in OSA journals
has more than quadrupled during the
past two decades, making OSK mem-
bers major contributors to international
optics. According to OSK Incumbent
President Bum Ku Rhee, who is with the
physics department at Sogang University
in Seoul, “In recent years, the main focus
on optical research in Korea has gradu-
ally shifted from quantity to quality,
and some significant contributions have
drawn worldwide attention such as elec-
trically driven single photon lasers, EUV
generation in nano-optics, and terahertz
radiation enhancement in nano slits, to
name a few.”
OSK has strong ties with the flat-
panel display industries in Korea, in-
cluding Samsung and LG. Since many
of these companies are now upgrading
their liquid crystal displays with LEDs,
these collaborations have become even
more robust. OSK is also expanding its
scope into biomedical applications as
well as ultra-high precision processing.
We are actively recruiting members in
fields outside of physics, such as electrical
engineering, mechanical engineering and
medical disciplines.

Like Korea itself, OSK grew quickly. The Society began with about 250 members, and today it is roughly eight times that size: Membership exceeds 2,000 and includes professionals in academia, research and industry.

OSK also has a close relationship with the Korea Association for Photonics Industry Development (KAPID) based in Gwangju, which has been home to the so-called photonics industrial zone since 1999. OSK sponsors and supports the International Photonics Technology Conference, an invitation-only conference, and Photonics Korea, an exhibition for the optics and photonics industry in Korea; both are led by KAPID.

To share the most up-to-date information among members, OSK publishes its own journal in English, the Journal of the Optical Society of Korea (JOSK). JOSK has been listed in SCI-E journals since 2008, and the number of submis-

Year Number of papers

1989-1992 1993-1996 1997-2000 2000-2002 2003-2006 2007-2009

58

92

126

147

220

184+ OSA journal articles written by Korean authors.

OSK

2008 OSK winter annual meeting with OSA

2010 President James Wyant, 5th from the right in the front row, in Seoul, Korea.

sions is rapidly increasing. OSK and OSA have agreed to list JOSK papers in OSA’s Optics Infobase, which will give JOSK papers international exposure so that OSK can contribute to the rapid exchange of ideas among optical scientists and engineers worldwide.

Preparing for the next decade, OSK President Elect Byoung Yoon Kim, from the physics department at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, has proposed that the society move in the following directions: 1) To establish a role model for developing countries in the international optical science and technology communities, thereby bridging the gap between developing countries and leading nations, 2) To expand global networking by hosting optics and photonics conferences on a regular basis, and 3) To further tighten relations between the domestic and global optics industries. We look forward to the next 20 years and beyond. t

Kyunghwan Oh ( koh@yonsei.ac.kr) is with the department of physics in Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. He is a director of general affairs for OSK and a member of OSA and Sigma-Xi.