Photorefractive Photonics and Beyond (PR26)

Interaction of Light with Matter

The International Conference series on Photorefractive Photonics and beyond was inaugurated in Los Angeles in 1987, and is typically held biennially. The upcoming meeting, PR'26, will mark the 20th edition of the series. Scheduled to take place from August 14 to 17, 2026, PR'26 will be hosted in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China.

Building on the legacy of previous editions, our goal is to foster interactions across a broad spectrum of research areas. These fields share common ground in the fundamental physics, the core phenomena underlying light–matter interactions, as well as potential fabrication strategies and applications. By facilitating such cross-disciplinary exchange, we aim to stimulate cross-fertilization of ideas and inspire novel approaches to harnessing light-driven phenomena—processes that, at a fundamental level, give rise to photorefractivity.

The conference will cover the following topics:

· Photorefractive and hybrid materials: Inorganic, organic and hybrid materials for photorefraction and nonlinear optics; crystals, liquid crystals, polymers, nonlinear fibers, gain media; organic semiconductors, perovskites.

· Nonlinear light-matter interaction and applications: wave mixing, ultrafast processes, beam propagation dynamics, solitons, light beam interactions, frequency conversion (UV, VIS, IR, THz), optical limiting and modulation, self-organization and spatio-temporal dynamics, nonlinear plasmonics.

· Materials micro- and nano-engineering: Ferroelectric domain patterning, microfabrication techniques, waveguides, resonators, metasurfaces and metamaterials, thin films, quantum dots, plasmonic structures, diffraction gratings.

· Holography, optical and signal processing and imaging: Dynamic wavefront sensing, image processing, digital holography, displays, photon-correlation techniques, photoacoustics, electrooptics, spatial light modulation, adaptive optics. All-optical signal processing, data storage, analog computing. Integrated optical devices. Applications in astrophotonics, biophotonics, etc.

· Fundamentals and novel applications of charge and exciton generation and transport: microscopic modelling, self-localized charge states, bulk photovoltaic effect and photoferroelectrics.

· Optical and optoelectronic manipulation: optical and photovoltaic tweezers, optofluidics, droplet manipulation. Nanoparticle trapping and patterning, photocatalysis.

· Green photonics: Ferroelectrics and photovoltaics. Photorefractive and hybrid platforms for addressing environmental challenges. Water and air pollutant sensing: detection and manipulation of micro- and nano-plastics, heavy metals, micro-organisms, etc.

· Intelligent photonics

AI-driven photonic design, photonic neural networks, reconfigurable PICs, inverse device design, AI-optimized metasurfaces, intelligent optical sensing, photonic AI accelerators, adaptive beam shaping, photonics-neuromorphic integration, intelligent quantum photonics, smart optical modulators/switches.