Keynote Lectures

Abstract
Optical spectroscopy is a game-changer for food analysis, offering a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative to traditional methods. With rapid, non-destructive measurements that eliminate the need for harmful chemicals and solvents, optical spectroscopy is revolutionizing green analytics for food quality and safety. Its minimal sample preparation saves time and resources, making it increasingly popular in the industry.
Moreover, by leveraging chemometrics or other AI algorithms to enhance the interpretation of complex data, optical spectroscopy allows for simultaneous analysis of multiple food components simultaneously. Just a quick light shot, combined with advanced spectroscopic training, provides comprehensive quantitative and qualitative assessments of various nutraceutical indicators all at once. It's a smart, sustainable way to ensure the best in food quality and safety.

While the mid-infrared band is known for its detailed molecular fingerprinting, the near-infrared (NIR) region is generating a buzz in food applications. This is where the absorption of overtones and combinations of molecular vibrations involving C-H, O-H, and N-H bonds occur, revealing crucial insights into food composition.

Photonic technologies initially developed for telecommunications, generated an explosion of compact light sources, detectors, micro-spectrometers, spectral sensors, fiber optics, and micro-photonic components. These innovations are now transforming food control, providing compact, robust, and low-cost instruments that are perfect for online applications by users with minimal technical training. This surge in new devices is driving a steady increase in NIR applications for food analysis.

In this talk, we'll explore the latest and most compact NIR spectroscopy devices, including pocket-sized and smartphone-connected models. We'll discuss their applications in food analysis and showcase their potential. Get ready to see how these powerful tools can revolutionize food quality and safety, and discover opportunities for future collaborations.

Abstract
Plasmonic nano- and meta-materials provide unique opportunities for engineering strong light-matter interactions enabling control over hot-carrier dynamics. The associated field enhancement and nonequilibrium carriers result in nonlinear optical effects important for controlling light with light and also induce photochemical transformations in the vicinity of nanostructures. Conventionally, nonlinear optical applications are limited by the available choice of naturally occurring materials and their generally weak nonlinear response. Weak nonlinearity of natural materials can be enhanced by their nanostructuring or using metamaterial approach. These can be addressed through material-level improvements, nanostructuring and leveraging the nuanced properties of nanostructured media combined with molecular species, in particular in a strong coupling regime. The nonlocal spatial dispersion effects are also important, offering opportunities for customizing the nonlinear response, particularly in the epsilon-near-zero regime. Quantum size effects in monocrystalline ultrathin plasmonic films have recently provided new opportunities for engineering both nonlinear optical response and hot-electron temporal response. Here, we will discuss plasmonic hetero-nanostructures for tailoring hot-electron dynamics, plasmonic nonlinearities, photocatalytic transformations and chiral response. Going beyond traditional field enhancement effects, we show how the introduction of additional hot-electron relaxation pathways, anisotropy and nonlocality allows to accelerate of decelerate temporal response of nonlinear optical effects in plasmonic nanostructures and improve the interaction of hot-carriers with molecular species resulting in enhanced photochemistry. The controlled ultrafast optical and electronic processes are important for applications in nonlinear photonics, photocatalysis and development of time-varying media. 

Abstract
Available soon.