Finalists for the OSA-Bookham New Focus Student Award, which recognizes students of excellence in research, presentation and leadership, were announced at CLEO/QELS. This year, the student competition attracted more than 20 submissions from a variety of prominent colleges and universities in the US and abroad. The seven finalists will be evaluated on oral presentations of their research tonight at the convention center. Six of the seven finalists will receive a $1500 cash prize each and one finalist will receive $5000, to be awarded tomorrow at the awards and plenary session. The students will present papers on the following topics: photonic crystal vertical cavity lasers and arrays -- Aaron Danner, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; photon recoil momentum in dispersive media -- Gretchen Campbell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; wide-angle transmission into photonic crystals -- Thomas P. White, CUDOS (Center for Ultrahigh Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems), University of Sydney, Australia; measuring the electric field of ultrashort pulses by interferometric spectral trace observation -- Ivan Amat-Roldán, Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, Barcelona, Spain; multichannel wavelength conversion of DPSK signals using four-wave mixing in highly nonlinear fiber without cross-gain-modulation penalty -- Preetpaul Devgan, Northwestern University; spectral line-by-line pulse shaping -- Zhi Jiang, Purdue University; 3-D wide angle laser beam steering using liquid crystals -- Sajjad A. Khan, CREOL (Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers), University of Central Florida.1600 Presenters, 320 ExhibitorsThe students join nearly 1600 presenters participating in CLEO/QELS/PhAST. "It's spectacular to see how the fruits of researchers' labor appear in products, " said Richard Linke, OSA science policy director and the 2005 CLEO conference general chair. Linke, who cohosted a press luncheon this afternoon, added that 320 exhibitors are participating in the CLEO/QELS exhibition, 100 more than last year. A t the press luncheon, some of those presenters discussed their research: Laura Marcu, director of the Biophotonics Research and Technology Development Laboratory, Department of Surgery, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, University of Southern California, is part of a team of engineers and surgeons that has developed a minimally invasive technique, using a practical laser-based fiber optics system, that can tell the difference between dangerous and less harmful forms of atherosclerotic plaque. This new technique can help physicians learn more about brain tumors and clogged arteries. (Applications of Time-Resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy to Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease and Brain Tumors Diagnosis) Stefan Linden, a researcher at the Center for Functional Nanostructures, Universität Karlsruhe, and the German Research Center Karlsruhe, described a collaboration between a team that is reporting a metamaterial designed for electromagnetic radiation at a record high frequency of around 100 terahertz (3-micron wavelength) in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.The research may one day lead to better cell-phone antennas, reception and coverage. (Toward Left-Handed Metamaterials at Optical Frequencies) R.J. Dwayne Miller, a professor of physics at the University of Toronto, discussed research that may provide deep insights into what occurs inside planets and stars. Scientists have captured the first atomic-level view of the melting process, one of the simplest transformations of matter, on the timescale of femtoseconds, or quadrillionths of a second. He said the experiments are revising scientists' basic knowledge of what happens during rapid melting. (Femtosecond Electron Diffraction: An Atomic-Level View of Condensed Phase Dynamics) Michael Duncan, a research physicist working in the Optical Sciences Division of the Naval Research Laboratory, said the detection, identification and location of targets from airborne platforms at ever-increasing target distances is a continuing challenge, but with readily apparent advantages. Researchers are presenting the results of real-time sensor fusion of visible imagery, hyperspectral imagery and data from electronic-signals collections systems. (Sensor Fusion for Long-Range Airborne Reconnaissance)