Recent research advances have shown the inter-connectedness of topics that encompass information technology and biotechnology rooted in nonliniear light-matter interactions and molecular media. The emerging fields of molecular photonics and biophotonics will be discussed through three connected areas.

1. Micro-Lasers and Nonlinear Wave Dynamics: A recent spin-off of polymer based waveguide technology has been the development of polymer-based whispering gallery mode (WGM) micro-lasers. A driving force for our research has been to establish a connection between the variable contour of the outer boundary of the micro-cavity and its emission properties of the out-coupled beam. Recent results will be discussed which shed light on basic nonlinear wave dynamics phenomena in the paradigmatic case of fully unstable stadium shaped cavities with different shapes.

2. Nonlinear Tensorial Optical Memories: Recent results on new nonlinear optical multi-valued optical memories allow for high density data storage. Direct implementation of abstract irreducible tensor algebra, in adequately coupled photonic and molecular states, will be shown to govern practical applications and configurations as well as more fundamental aspects.

3. Advances in Nonlinear Optical Imaging in Nanoscience and Nanobiotechnologies: Combining coherent and non-coherent multiphoton effects under the confocal microscope with polarization and phase resolution allows map-out with sub-micron resolution of order parameters of inhomogeneous matter with unprecedented accuracy. A new imaging scheme will be discussed which provides striking evidence of the direct connection between telecom and life science. This scheme may be viewed as an original optical patch-clamp system directly derived from the linear electro-optic Pockels effect. Preliminary results will be presented which aim to provide direct non-contact dynamic imaging of electric action potentials in synapses under a contact-less sub-mW CW level of laser power, in strong contrast to the currently used more aggressive techniques.

Dr. Joseph Zyss is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris, 1972) and Ecole Normale Supérieure des Télécommunications (Paris, 1975). He obtained his Ph.D. (Doctorat d'Etat) in Physics from Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI) in 1982. He was a member of CNET (Centre National d'Etudes des Télécommunications) technical staff from 1975 to 1997, where he founded the Molecular Quantum Electronics Department and was Scientific Adviser to the Director of the Optoelectronics Laboratory of CNET in Bagneux, at the time the largest research laboratory in Optoelectronics in Europe. In 1998, he was appointed University Professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Cachan (Physics). Dr. Zyss also founded and is currently Director of the Laboratory for Molecular Quantum Photonics (LPQM) and the d'Alembert Institute.

Dr. Zyss' personal research over the past three decades has spanned different domains of light-matter interactions in molecular media. He has authored or co-authored more than 300 research papers and has pioneered research in nonlinear molecular photonics, including both fundamental and technology-oriented developments, theory, and experiments with particular focus on pointing-out, formalizing, and exploiting tensorial dimensions within a so-called comprehensive all-optical multipolar approach. Dr. Zyss is a fellow of the OSA and is a member of OSA international council. He has received various awards including the IBM prize of the French Physical Society and has been a visiting scientist at MIT, the Weizmann Institute and ATT Bell Laboratories among others. Along with Marie d'Iorio (NRC, Ottawa), Dr. Zyss is currently co-directing the OPEN (Organic and Photonic Electronic Network) initiative which brings together the work of a number of CNRS and NRC laboratories. He has been involved in a variety of international collaborations including ongoing work with colleagues at the University of Toronto.