2025 OMS^3 Summer Course
August 2025
This summer marked the fourth annual Optoelectronic Materials Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Systems Summer Course (OMS³), IMOD’s annual in-person training event. Hosted this year at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, the program brought together 23 researchers from 12 of IMOD’s institutions and PREM partners.
As in past years, the OMS³ course blended intensive lab-based sessions with professional development programming designed to strengthen both scientific expertise and collaborative capacity across the IMOD network. Participants rotated through hands-on modules in quantum dot synthesis, LED heterointegration, quantum sensing, and theory/modeling, gaining direct experience outside their home specialties. By the end of the week, theorists had fabricated and characterized materials and devices, experimentalists had run calculations, and the whole cohort had built a deeper shared vocabulary that will fuel interdisciplinary collaboration across the Center.
Complementing the technical sessions, professional development workshops focused on science communication and career success. The 2025 course featured a visit to one of IMOD’s industry partners, FOM Technologies, an advanced manufacturing tool-maker with its U.S. offices at the Washington Clean Energy Testbeds, an open-access UW facility with several pieces of FOM equipment. OMS³ participants heard from FOM and Testbeds senior staff scientists who earned their PhDs in the MacKenzie and Ginger groups as well as a career networking panel, offering participants a broader perspective on career paths.
The 2025 OMS³ cohort with FOM senior staff scientist Dr. Holly Brunner (center-left) at the Testbeds.
And at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center, the OMS³ cohort spent a half-day engaging the public by leading hundreds of young students and their families through hands-on activities representing IMOD research concepts. Visitors painted with sunlight, saw quantum dot samples glow different colors under UV light, powered LEDs with mini solar panels, used different prisms to refract laser pointers, and looked through special lenses that diffract light into patterns or rainbows.
Following the course, the majority of OMS³ participants remained in Seattle to attend the 2025 IMOD Annual Meeting, also hosted at the UW. As IMOD enters its fifth year, OMS³ continues to serve as a cornerstone of its training ecosystem, equipping the next generation of optoelectronics researchers with both the technical and professional tools to succeed in highly interdisciplinary science.
Applications for the Summer 2026 OMS³ course will open on the program webpage in early 2026.