Light-Night: The 2018 Nobel prize in Physics Afgelopen Auditorium 1, iGent tower, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 15, 9052 Gent, Belgium 28 november 2018 om 18:30 The Photonics Society of Ghent and Vereniging voor Natuurkunde (VVN) organize the first “Light Night” of this academic year, a public talk open to everyone interested. The central theme of this edition is this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, which was awarded “for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics” with one half to Arthur Ashkin “for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems”, the other half jointly to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.” We invited two of UGent professors with experience in these topics to shed some light on the impact of the awarded work on our lives. Prof. Filip Beunis (Liquid Crystals and Photonics Group) will speak about optical tweezers which use light to ‘grab’ tiny particles/cells and allow studying live bacteria and viruses without damaging or killing them. Prof. Bart Kuyken (Photonics Research Group) will give an insight into the chirped pulse amplification which have found many applications including cancer treatment, micromachining and laser surgery etc. You are all kindly invited to register for the talk: https://webappsx.ugent.be/eventManager/events/LightNightNobel **Free drink and snacks would be provided at the end of the talk** Ref: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2018/summary/