Announcements

MDPI is delighted to announce the establishment of the Michele Parrinello Award. Named in honor of Professor Michele Parrinello, the award celebrates his exceptional contributions and his profound impact on the field of computational physical science research.

The award will be presented biennially to distinguished scientists who have made outstanding achievements and contributions in the field of computational physical science—spanning physics, chemistry, and materials science.

About Professor Michele Parrinello

"Do not be afraid of new things. I see it many times when we discuss a new thing that young people are scared to go against the mainstream a little bit, thinking what is going to happen to me and so on. Be confident that what you do is meaningful, and do not be afraid, do not listen too much to what other people have to say.”

——Professor Michele Parrinello

Born in Messina in 1945, he received his degree from the University of Bologna and is currently affiliated with the Italian Institute of Technology. Professor Parrinello is known for his many technical innovations in the field of atomistic simulations and for a wealth of interdisciplinary applications ranging from materials science to chemistry and biology. Together with Roberto Car, he introduced ab initio molecular dynamics, also known as the Car–Parrinello method, marking the beginning of a new era both in the area of electronic structure calculations and in molecular dynamics simulations. He is also known for the Parrinello–Rahman method, which allows crystalline phase transitions to be studied by molecular dynamics. More recently, he has introduced metadynamics for the study of rare events and the calculation of free energies.

For his work, he has been awarded many prizes and honorary degrees. He is a member of numerous academies and learned societies, including the German Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, the British Royal Society, and the Italian Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, which is the major academy in his home country of Italy.

Award Committee

The award committee will be chaired by Professor Xin-Gao Gong, a computational condensed matter physicist, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and professor at the Department of Physics, Fudan University. Professor Xin-Gao Gong will lead a panel of several senior experts in the field to oversee the evaluation and selection process. The Institute for Computational Physical Sciences at Fudan University (Shanghai, China), led by Professor Xin-Gao Gong, will serve as the supporting institute for the award.

"We hope the Michele Parrinello Award will recognize scientists who have made significant contributions to the field of computational condensed matter physics and at the same time set a benchmark for the younger generation, providing clear direction for their pursuit—this is precisely the original intention behind establishing the award."

——Professor Xin-Gao Gong

The first edition of the award was officially launched on 1 November 2025. Nominations will be accepted before the end of March 2026. For further details, please visit mparrinelloaward.org.

About the MDPI Sustainability Foundation and MDPI Awards

The Michele Parrinello Award is part of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing sustainable development through scientific progress and global collaboration. The foundation also oversees the World Sustainability Award, the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award, and the Tu Youyou Award. The establishment of the Michele Parrinello Award will further enrich the existing award portfolio, providing continued and diversified financial support to outstanding professionals across various fields. 

In addition to these foundation-level awards, MDPI journals also recognize outstanding contributions through a range of honors, including Best Paper Awards, Outstanding Reviewer Awards, Young Investigator Awards, Travel Awards, Best PhD Thesis Awards, Editor of Distinction Awards, and others. These initiatives aim to recognize excellence across disciplines and career stages, contributing to the long-term vitality and sustainability of scientific research.

Find more information on awards here.

This Academic Publishing Workshop will be led by MDPI Regional Journal Relations Specialist, Dr. Sally Wu, on “Author Training”. Participants will receive practical advice on essential aspects of writing academic articles. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of the academic publishing landscape and how to successfully contribute to it.

Date: 25 February 2026
Time: 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. EST

Schedule:

Speakers:

MDPI has surpassed the milestone of 1,000 partners within the Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). The agreements span 59 countries, covering North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.

Last year alone, more than 150 new libraries and academic institutions joined MDPI’s IOAP. With the expansion of an existing consortium deal in Sweden we welcomed a further 75 partners to the program in January 2026, enabling us to surpass the 1,000-partners milestone.

The IOAP supports affiliated researchers by streamlining submission processes, reducing administrative burdens, and offering discounted Article Processing Charges (APCs). Through IOAP membership, more than 61,300 research articles received APC discounts in 2025, driving greater visibility and accessibility for partner institutions and global research communities alike.

"This milestone marks a significant step towards expanding MDPI’s global impact," said Stefan Tochev, MDPI's CEO. "Reaching 1,000 IOAP partnerships is a true testament to the growing trust and collaboration we’ve built with universities, libraries, and research organizations worldwide. We are proud to lead the way in Open Access publishing, ensuring researchers have the support they need to reach global audiences." "The success of our program is reflected in the growing global demand for Open Science and quality publishing services," said Becky Castellon, MDPI institutional partnerships manager. "Equally, institutions are increasingly seeking Open Access publishing options that support funder and national mandates. Joining the IOAP makes compliance simple."

Prof. Dr. Miroshnichenko and Dr. Hattori are some of the authors of the paper entitled "Rydberg Atom-Based Sensors: Principles, Recent Advances, and Applications," published in Photonics (ISSN: 2304-6732).

Prof. Andrey E. Miroshnichenko obtained his PhD in 2003 from the Max-Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden, Germany. In 2004, he moved to Australia to join the Nonlinear Physics Centre at the Australian National University. During that time, he made fundamentally important contributions to the field of photonic crystals and brought the concept of the Fano resonances to nanophotonics. In 2007, he was awarded an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship, and in 2011, a Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council. In 2017, he moved to the University of New South Wales Canberra and became an UNSW Scientia Fellow.  In 2019, Prof Miroshnichenko was recognized as one of the Highly Cited Researchers by the Web of Science Group. The topics of his research are nonlinear nanophotonics, nonlinear optics, and resonant interaction of light with nanoclusters, including optical nanoantennas and metamaterials.

Dr. Haroldo T. Hattori received a BSc (with honors) and an MSc degree in Electrical Engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA) and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in 1998. He worked for Alcatel in Brazil and Spain on the development of optical fiber systems. From 1994 to 1998, while at Virginia Tech, he analyzed specialty optical fibers to reduce nonlinear effects in long-haul optical communications links. He worked as an assistant professor at ITA, where he conducted research in fiber Bragg gratings (for telecom and sensing applications). Between 2002 and 2005, he conducted research in the area of photonic crystals and microdisk lasers at the University of Glasgow and Ecole Centrale de Lyon. Currently, he is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering and Technology, UNSW Canberra. He is currently working with active opto-electronic devices (e.g., photodetectors, plasmonic devices, and lasers) and quantum sensing. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Association, Senior Member of the IEEE, and a Senior Member of Optica. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.

1. Could you give us a brief introduction about yourself and your current research topic to our readers?

Prof. Dr. Miroshnichenko’s background is nanophotonics, with an emphasis on the resonance structures, dielectric structures, and metal surfaces, and together with Dr. Hattori, they have started looking into the time-dependent aspect of time-variant constructions, such as metasurfaces and Rydberg systems. This paper was about this special type of setup, where all the expertise can come together, and that is leading to more practical outcomes for those specific setups.

Like Prof. Dr. Miroshnichenko, Dr. Hattori also works with photonics and is more focused on devices such as photodetectors and sensing platforms at the moment. He has started exploring this new area of photonics since the middle of 2025. The whole Rydberg setup is operational now, and we hope to publish more work in MDPI and other venues.

2. Could you describe the difficulties and breakthrough innovations encountered in your current research?

We have a lot of experience in photonics, but we have begun working in this area recently. It turns out that there are not many groups actually involved in this area, and we see many opportunities, which is why we now want to focus and direct all our resources and attention to this specific field of sensing and setups. This allows us to get access to a specific type of measurement or sensing for different types of environments in different spectral ranges; this includes picking up very weak signals for different types of applications, including sensors, electromagnetic fields, spectral ranges, and communications. This is because a Rydberg setup can be thought of as a small, atom-sized antenna that can sense fields. This means it has a very high precision and unlocks various opportunities because it is not only a sense of the amplitude, like most sensors operate, but it is actually collecting all the properties, including the phase and polarization, which gives you full information about the electromagnetic environment, and it does not disturb the field. That means that for communication applications, you can actually kind of eavesdrop on what is going on without being noticed, and nobody will be able to detect your presence. So it is really unique in the setup there. Plus, given its small size, there is a possibility to get the current broadband spectral ranges up to terahertz.

In the beginning, it was very hard to start working on this topic because it is quite a defense-related area, and there is not much available information in journals and papers. So, we started small, working with a few megahertz, having reached 6 gigahertz, and trying to reach 10 gigahertz in the near future. We also started talking with big labs, and we got a positive response from agencies like NASA, which are interested in this topic for space applications.

3. What do you hope that readers will get from your paper?

This paper was more like an overview of the fields, with some inclusion of our results in there, because at first we were interested in the educational aspect, as we wanted to enter the field and observe what is available, known, and new, and what the current questions are in the field. As Dr. Hattori mentioned, it turns out that not much information is available. We found that general physics is known for such a mechanism and noticed that if you want to build it up yourself, there are many tricks and details you need to take care of. For us, it was a bit of a challenge to decipher it in the available literature. When we collected it, we wanted to present it in a way that the reader not only understands the process and mechanism but also knows how to replicate it and how to build a setup, and also understands how and what they can do with it and what it is useful for, such as the particular range of applications it can unlock. Our task was also actually how to fit first, as Dr. Hattori mentioned, into the existing benchmarks, so that we can obtain the results and what is published at the moment, but also to see how we can expand it right when we are focusing on a specific range of applications.

Of course, we were lucky to get some initial funding from our university in order to build this setup and construct this system, as it requires very special lasers with very narrow bandwidths, which are quite expensive.

4. Do you have any advice or experience that you would like to share with young researchers who want to pursue research in this field?

Being scientists, we want to find an exciting topic so that we can deliver not only new but also useful results in terms of applications, and the reason why we are actually focusing now on this type of application is that we see the huge potential this setup actually can bring us. We found that by building and fine-tuning it, you can unlock a high sensitivity, and the broadband-type devices can be used for different purposes for sensing fields like encrypted communications and monitoring electromagnetic environments. Currently, our setup is free space, which means that it is bulky and occupies the full optical table. The main goal for the future is to actually come up with an integrated kind of portable version, which later can be pulled either on the mobile platforms like UAVs or drones, and where you can start sensing large areas with high precision, and even intra-satellite communication and space applications, and defense, intelligence, and counterterrorism as well. We also wanted to know what is necessary in the calibration of the electromagnetic products.

At the same time, as a scientist, you need to focus on your goal and also keep in mind your limitations and boundary conditions, and not forget that other researchers or competitors may be working in the same area you are looking at. Having said that, a hard-learned lesson is that ‘you will never succeed if you don’t take calculated risks’ (Richard Branson), so you need to try different things until you succeed.

We also think that there will be some useful outcomes in the future, and that is why we want to be able to demonstrate, represent, and share them with the research community.

5. How were you first introduced to Photonics? What is your impression and experience with our journal?

We have been working with MDPI for a few years now. We were contacted initially, and so far our experience and communication with different journal editorial teams have been pleasant and successful in terms of the publishing experience; this also applies to our involvement as Academic Editors.

For this particular paper published in Photonics, we got a really short turnaround time between the submission time, review reports collection, and even the acceptance, followed by the publication being online. The short timeframe and effectiveness of the editorial process were two of the key factors that made us decide to submit to the journal.  Sometimes the deadlines were quite short, but with the help of our co-authors, we managed to handle this aspect in a timely manner. We found that the reviewer comments were very insightful, which led to the paper being improved in a good way; we found the reviewers to be very collaborative and not combative.

Prof. Dr. Govind P. Agrawal received the MS and PhD degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi (India), in 1971 and 1974, respectively. After holding positions at the École Polytechnique, Paris; City University of New York, New York; and AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, he joined the University of Rochester in January 1989, where he is currently the James C. Wyant Professor of Optics. Prof. Dr. Agrawal is a Life Fellow of IEEE, a Distinguished Fellow of the Optical Society of India, and a Fellow of the Optica. Prof. Dr. Agrawal received the IEEE Photonics Society’s prestigious Quantum Electronics Award in 2012 and was the recipient of the 2013 William H. Riker University Award for Graduate Teaching. Prof. Dr. Agrawal was awarded the Esther Hoffman Beller Medal of the Optical Society in 2015. He was the recipient of two major awards in 2019—the Max Born Award of the Optical Society and the Quantum Electronics Prize of the European Physics Society. Prof. Dr. Agrawal received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Hajim School of Engineering in 2020.

“Space–Time Duality in Optics: Its Origin and Applications”
by Govind P. Agrawal
Photonics 2025, 12(6), 611; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics12060611
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/12/6/611

1. Could you give us a brief introduction about yourself and your current research topic to our readers?
My name is Govind Agrawal, and I am a professor at the Institute of Optics, University of Rochester. I work in the areas of nonlinear optics and optical communications. I have been working in these areas for almost 50 years now, and I teach courses at the university and do research. My current research is mostly focused on nonlinear optics, optical fibers, and the nonlinear effects of optical fibers. We were particularly focused on the area of space-time duality in optics for the last 10 years, which is the topic on which I published a review paper in Photonics.

2. Could you describe the difficulties and breakthrough innovations encountered in your current research?
I have been at this university for the last 35 years, so there has not been a particular difficulty for me. But before that, like every young person, I have had certain difficulties in my career as well. I finished my PhD in India, then I went for my postdoc in France, followed by a second postdoc in New York, the United States. Given the struggles of the job market, I worked initially in a small French company before I got a job at Bell Labs in New Jersey, where basically my career started. I was there for about 6 years and wrote two books: one on semiconductor lasers and another one on nonlinear fiber optics. Both became quite well known, which gave me the opportunity to get a position at the University of Rochester. Since then, things have been pretty good. My research group consists of five or six people, and we have been working in different areas over the last 35 years.  

3. What do you hope that readers will get from your paper?
The point of research is to advance the state of the art in any given field. So, you are trying to come up with some new ideas and then work with students to write a paper for publication, which you hope will attract the attention of the readers. Ultimately, the idea is to write something useful to other people. So clearly, the citations and other metrics are very important in that sense. I work with my students, and I tell them that we are not going to publish anything until we are sure it is in good shape and of good quality, so that other people will appreciate reading your work.

4. Do you have any advice or experience that you would like to share with young researchers who want to pursue research in this field?
My experience working at the institute with my students and other students is that they all want to do good work and succeed. It is not always easy, particularly for students who have an aspiration to become a professor. Finding a university position would not be an easy road. So, I tell them that everybody struggles initially. As this is common. I tell them this in advance so that they will be ready for it in case they are getting rejected, especially if they are looking for a job at an academic institution, due to the small number of positions and many candidates. So, I try to prepare them with that, and I also tell them they should not hesitate to work in the industry initially before coming back to academia. This is a valid path, since you can also do research in industry or government labs, and it is also a good option.

5. How were you first introduced to Photonics? What is your impression and experience with our journal?
Photonics is very active in advertising, and I used to get lots of emails initially for different things, especially for Special Issues. So, I became aware of the journal very early on. I then noticed that someone I personally knew was editing a Special Issue in my research area, and I submitted my review paper. I liked the experience: the review process was very quick, and the fact that the paper was well reviewed. I also liked the professionalism of the staff, and I think they are doing a good job overall. My impression is that the journal is very well managed, which is another reason why I decided to get involved a few times with it.

The editorial office of Photonics would like to extend its sincere gratitude to all reviewers who contributed to the improvement of the journal quality by providing their expert opinion and evaluation of the submitted research.

We appreciate that thorough peer review demands considerable time and intellectual investment from our reviewers. In 2025, Photonics received 6159 review reports from contributors across 68 countries and territories, demonstrating the breadth of international expertise and scholarly engagement that has strengthened our publication standards.

The reviewers who agreed to have their names published this year are listed below in alphabetical order by first name. The editorial team acknowledges with gratitude all reviewers, named and anonymous alike, for their vital role in maintaining the scholarly standards of Photonics.

Conference: 2026 IEEE 21st International Conference on Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems
Date: 17–21 April 2026
Location: Chengdu, China

MDPI will be attending the 2026 IEEE 21st International Conference on Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems as an exhibitor. The conference will be held from 17 to 21 April 2026. We welcome researchers from different backgrounds to visit and share their latest ideas with us.

IEEE-NEMS is a premier conference series sponsored by the IEEE Nanotechnology Council focusing on the promotion of advanced research areas related to M/NEMS, nanotechnology, and molecular technology. Prior conferences were held in Zhuhai (2025), Kyoto (2024), Jeju (2023), Virtually (2022), Xiamen (2021), Virtually (2020), Bangkok (2019), Singapore (2018), Los Angeles (2017), Matsushima Bay (2016), Xi’an (2015), Hawaii (2014), Suzhou (2013), Kyoto (2012), Kaohsiung (2011), Xiamen (2010), Shenzhen (2009), Hainan Island (2008), Bangkok (2007), and Zhuhai (2006).

The conference will focus on the following topics:

• Micro/Nano Electro-Mechanical Systems (M/NEMS);
• Micro/Nano/Molecular Fabrication;
• Micro/Nano Robotics;
• Micro/Nano/Molecular Physical/Chemical Sensors/Actuators;
• Micro/Nano Integrated Devices/Circuits/Systems;
• Micro/Nanofluidics;
• Nano Photonics and Micro/Molecular Optical Devices;
• Micro/Nano - Composite Materials and Structures;
• Micro/Nano - Bio-/Medical Devices and Systems;
• Functional Nanomaterials and Synthesis;
• 3D Printing and Bioprinting.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Micromachines;
• Micro;
• Electronics;
• Robotics;
• Nanomaterials;
• Photonics;
• Nanomanufacturing.

Photonics (ISSN: 2304-6732) is pleased to announce the following 50 researchers, who have been added to our group of 2026–2027 Early Career Editorial Board Members. Please join us in congratulating them on joining the Photonics community!

We are delighted to announce the 2nd International Online Conference on Photonics (IOCP 2026), chaired by Prof. Dr. Boris Malomed and Prof. Dr. Pasquale Pagliusi. It will take place from 14 to 16 December 2026, online.

IOCP 2026 warmly invites researchers from academic institutions and professionals in the Photonics, Optics, Lights and Lasers sciences to share their original research, innovative ideas, scientific insights, and practical experiences.

We welcome contributions that align with the following thematic areas:
S1. Quantum Photonics and Technologies;
S2. Lasers and Their Applications;
S3. Optical Communication and Network;
S4. Optoelectronics and Optical Materials;
S5. Nonlinear Optics and Photonics;
S6. New Applications Enabled by Photonics Technologies and Systems;
S7. Biophotonics and Biomedical Optics.

Important deadlines:
Abstract submission deadline: 17 August 2026;
Acceptance notification deadline: 17 September 2026;
Registration deadline: 9 December 2026.

Guide for authors:
To submit your abstract, please click on the following link: https://sciforum.net/user/submission/create/1703.

To register for the event for free, please click on the following link: https://sciforum.net/event/IOCP2026?section=#registration.

For more information, you may refer to: https://sciforum.net/event/IOCP2026.

For any enquiries regarding the event, please contact us at iocp2026@mdpi.com.