The International Conference on Quantum Information (ICQI) and the Ninth Rochester Conference on Coherence and Quantum Optics (CQO9) will meet next week at the University of Rochester.

Between June 10 and 15, more than 300 researchers, including many world-famous scientists and at least one Nobel laureate, from 25 countries are expected to attend these meetings, which are landmark events in the field of the study of the interaction of light and matter.

These conferences have been held approximately every six years since 1960, when operation of the first laser was announced. The University's Wilson Professor of Optical Physics Emil Wolf founded the first CQO conference, with only 26 participants. The conferences provide a perspective on progress in the field and highlight the latest developments in a series of tutorials, historical reviews, invited papers and poster sessions.

This year, Nobel laureate Roy J. Glauber of Harvard University, like more than a dozen Nobel laureates before him, will participate. Other attendees will present more than 200 reports of their latest research results, which will be assembled in a book, forming a snapshot of the progress of quantum optics in laboratories throughout the world.

CQO9 is being jointly organized by University of Rochester Professors Nicholas Bigelow, Joseph Eberly, and Carlos Stroud. The local co-chair of ICQI is Robert Boyd, M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics at the University. The conferences are supported by the U.S. Army Research Office, the Optical Society of America, the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics, Taylor and Francis Publishers, as well as the Institute of Optics and the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Rochester.