Welcome to the home page for the Optical Terahertz Science and Technology conference series.

The OTST conference was founded to provide a venue for researchers using optical techniques to access the terahertz spectral range. This small workshop is held in March or April, every other year. It features both invited and contributed presentations from researchers worldwide, highlighting the latest results in generation, detection, spectroscopy, imaging, and applications of terahertz science.

NEWS: The next OTST site has been chosen.

Location: Duke University, Durham NC, USA

Web site: coming soon

Important dates:

Abstract submission deadline: TBD

Conference dates: April 12-17, 2026

Chairs: Willie Padilla and Hassan Arbab

Check the conference web site for more information.

HISTORY: OTST was founded in 2005, at a time when the terahertz community was beginning a period of rapid growth and activity. The vision for the conference is to remain relatively small (fewer than 200 participants), in the model of a Gordon Conference, to promote discussion and allow scientists at all stages of their careers to connect and collaborate. In 2005 and 2007, the conference was sponsored by the Optical Society of America, as an OSA Topical Meeting. Beginning in 2009, OTST became an independent conference series, with all of the responsibilities for the technical program and local organization handled by the two conference chairs. The 2013 workshop in Kyoto Japan was the first held outside of the USA; the 2017 meeting in London was the second. In 2019, the conference returned to the USA, in Santa Fe New Mexico. The next conference, which was to have been held in 2021, was delayed until 2022 due to the COVID pandemic, and was held in Budapest, Hungary.

SELECTING THE NEXT OTST SITE: The current and former OTST Chairs have recognized the need for a more formal procedure for deciding on the location and the Chairs of subsequent meetings. Any person(s) interested in acting as Chair and host should prepare a brief document (pdf format) outlining their proposal. This document should contain, at a minimum, the following information:

· Names of the two conference chairs and their affiliations; their history of previous attendance at OTST.

· Proposed conference dates and location, including details of the location’s capacity for handling a meeting of this sort (i.e., a full week with one technical session at a time, not parallel sessions); any previous conferences of comparable size (200 attendees) hosted at that location; access to transportation, especially for international attendees; visa requirements (if any); estimated hotel costs for participants.

· Budgetary information, including income from conference fee and expenditures associated with reserving the venue, refreshment/dinner, etc. Please be aware that OTST does not have any ongoing external support, either in the form of funding or staff/personnel, so these issues must be considered carefully.

· Local amenities / proposed conference outing sites.

This brief proposal must be provided to the current OTST Chairs at least 4 months prior to the start of the preceding conference. (That is, proposals to host the 2026 meeting should be submitted at least four months prior to the 2024 meeting.) The steering committee, composed of all current and former OTST Chairs, will review all proposals prior to the conference, and will make a final selection by majority vote of attending members during the conference (absentee voting not permitted).

PREVIOUS AND CURRENT CONFERENCES

Year	Location	Co-Chairs
2005	Orlando FL USA	Mark Allen, Physical Sciences Inc. Daniel Mittleman, Rice University
2007	Orlando FL USA	Peter Uhd Jepsen, Technical University of Denmark Gwyn Williams, Jefferson National Laboratory
2009	Santa Barbara, CA USA	Frank Hegmann, University of Alberta Edmonton Andrea Markelz, University at Buffalo Honorary co-chair: Mark Sherwin, University of California Santa Barbara
2011	Santa Barbara CA USA	Ajay Nahata, University of Utah Charles Schmuttenmaer, Yale University Honorary co-chair: Mark Sherwin, University of California Santa Barbara
2013	Kyoto Japan	Koichiro Tanaka, Kyoto University Masayoshi Tonouchi, University of Osaka
2015	San Diego CA USA	Richard Averitt, University of California San Diego Dmitri Basov, University of California San Diego
2017	London UK	Oleg Mitrofanov, University College London Miriam Vitiello, Instituto Nanoscience CNR and Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy
2019	Santa Fe NM USA	Hou-Tong Chen, Los Alamos National Laboratory Igal Brener, Sandia National Laboratory
2022	Budapest, Hungary	Jozsef Fulop, University of Pecs Janos Hebling, University of Pecs
2024	Marburg, Germany	Martin Koch, University of Marburg Enrique Castro-Camus, University of Marburg
2026	Durham NC USA	Willie Padilla, Duke University Hassan Arbab, Stony Brook University

In the UCL courtyard, London Conference Dinner, Kyoto

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Last modified: 1 March 2024