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Foreword to the special issue: Optical glasses, the research pillar of photonics: In celebration of the 80th birthday of Prof. Giancarlo C. Righini

Optical Materials 168 (2025) 117506

This Special Issue celebrates the 80th birthday of Prof. Dr. Giancarlo C. Righini. This milestone signifies a lifetime of rich scientific experi- ences and notable achievements. It is not a coincidence that the title of this collection is "Optical Glasses: The Research Pillar of Photonics," as Giancarlo Righini has dedicated his long and distinguished scientific career to glass photonics and countless aspects related to it, be they integrated optics, amplifiers, microresonators and microcavities, sensors, coherent and incoherent light sources. These topics still attract his interest, in which he remains active with robust scientific publications and support for young researchers, including through tutorials, lectures, and seminars that introduce early-stage researchers to glass photonics. His contribution to the topic of flexible photonics is important, to mention just one of his scientific endeavors. The historical dissemination of glass and its applications has always been one of Giancarlo Righinis interests, although we were unable to include articles on the topic in this collection of works for reasons of simple thematic homogeneity and available space.

We do not need to go into detail but a simple look at his academic and scientific curriculum highlights his remarkable career and reflects his strong technical commitment, his exceptional teaching capacity, his enviable international reputation, his charismatic role as organizer of important scientific events and leader of innovative international research projects. Dr. Giancarlo C. Righini has also held key leadership positions in prestigious Italian scientific research institutions and prominent international scientific associations such as International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), International Commission of Optics (ICO), and International Commission on Glass (ICG). He is Fellow of EOS, Optica, SIOF, SPIE, and meritorious member of SIF (Italian Physical Society). In 2022 he received the Turner Award of ICG.

          Unsurprisingly, the call for papers for this Special Issue generated an overwhelming response from the scientific community. The main chal- c lenge was therefore to limit the number of accepted papers. All sub- missions underwent a rigorous peer-review process, and this Special  Issue ultimately comprises 30 high-quality contributions. More than half  of these papers are concerned with physical, chemical, upconversion  and nonlinear optical properties of glasses in different forms. The remaining papers are devoted to glass-based sensors, waveguides, as  well as fiber and integrated optic devices. The authors are esteemed colleagues of Giancarlo Righini, many of whom, along with the special issue Editors, consider him a mentor. They represent a wide range of countries where Giancarlo is especially well known and appreciated: Brazil, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Russian Feder- ation, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

We hope that the readers of this Special Issue will recognize the role of glass photonics as a key enabling technology across several strategic domains: life sciences and healthcare, industrial manufacturing and quality assurance, information and communication technologies, light- ing, sensing and displays, quantum technologies, lasers, light manage- ment, and the development of groundbreaking optical devices. While not exhaustive, the papers in this collection offer high-level insights into these diverse scientific areas. At the same time, we hope that Giancarlo will appreciate the scien- tific content of this Special Issue, which we are honored to edit.

Last but certainly not least, we wish to express our sincere gratitude to the entire staff of Optical Materials, who kindly and efficiently sup- ported us in assembling the technical program and managing the editorial tasks. Special thanks go to Editor-in-Chief John Ballato, former Editor-in-Chief Alok Srivastava, and Optical Materials Manager Ysabel Ermers, who all believed in this initiative. We are also deeply grateful to the fantastic Stella Duo and Surjith Kumar, who led the construction of this Special Issue and expertly handled all challenges.

John, Luigi, Maurizio.

 M. Ferrari , L. Sirleto , J. Ballato*

National Research Council (CNR), IFN-CNR CSMFO Lab. and FBK Photonics Unit, Via alla Cascata 56/C Povo, 38123, Trento, Italy 

National Research Council (CNR), Institute of Applied Sciences and Intelligent Systems, 00185, Napoli, Italy 

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, 29634, United States of America

*Corresponding author. E-mail address: jballat@clemson.edu (J. Ballato).

This article is part of a special issue entitled: 80th birthday of Giancarlo C. Righini published in Optical Materials. Available online 10 September 2025
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