COMBS Mini Summer School

11 – 12 December, 2025

The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Optical Microcombs for Breakthrough Science (COMBS) is organising a mini-Summer School immediately following ANZCOP 2025.  

The Summer School is a joint activity of COMBS and Te Whai Ao – Dodd Walls Centre in New Zealand. 

Timing: 11th (evening) – 2 pm, 12th December, 2025
Venue: University of Auckland, Sir Owen G Glenn Building (same venue as ANZCOP 2025)
Registration: NZ$80 per person

COMBS is subsidising this event as part of its Education and Outreach strategy.

Details to date

The Summer School will kick off on Thursday evening 11 December with a dinner and a lecture by Professor Scott Diddams from the University of Colorado, who is also a plenary speaker at the conference. 

The Summer school then resumes the following morning, Friday 12 December, with tutorial lectures by: 

It will finish with a lunch and the opportunity for one-on-one discussion with the lecturers.  

This will still be sufficiently early to make it to the airport in time for Friday evening flights back to Australia. 

Who can attend?

The COMBS Summer School will be open to anybody interested in the basics of frequency combs. Attendance, which will include dinner and lunch, will cost NZ$80. 

COMBS is subsidising this event as part of its Education and Outreach strategy.

All attendees are welcome to attend the Summer School – it will be a great opportunity to learn frequency-comb basics and to attend ANZCOP.

Lecture summaries 

Prof. Scott Diddams, Professor of Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering, University of Colorado and COMBS Partner Investigator:  Introduction: history of frequency combs and a broad overview.  

This is meant to be a taster to set us up for Friday morning’s lectures.  

Martijn de Sterke, Professor in Physics, University of Sydney and COMBS Chief Investigator:  Stepping stones: Frequency combs are a product of nonlinear optical effects in a cavity.  

Stéphane Coen, Associate Professor in Physics, Auckland University and COMBS Partner Investigator:  Frequency comb basics: why and how do frequency combs work and how do you model them?  

Bill Corcoran, Associate Professor in Optical Communications, Monash University and COMBS Chief Investigator:  Practical issues: Microcombs sound interesting, but how do they work in practice, and can I use one?  

Irina Kabakova, Professor in Optical Physics, University of Technology Sydney and COMBS Chief Investigator:  Applications: Let’s say we finally got a frequency comb working, now we answer a question – what can we do with it?