The President of the Portuguese Republic, Prof. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, visited Sphere Ultrafast Photonics last Friday, October 7, as the Faculty of Science of the University of Porto (FCUP) was celebrating its 105th anniversary. The president was very interested in the developments, achievements and new products that Sphere Photonics has to offer to the World. He was also impressed by the very fast time that it takes us to bring a new product from research into the market and furthermore understood that the technologies developed at FCUP, and particularly at IFIMUP, including new methods for the measurement and control of femtosecond laser pulses down to single-cycle durations, the development of femtosecond lasers (sub-6-fs) and large-format pulsed laser holography are key examples of leading edge technology that can be found at the University of Porto. The president was accompanied by the Director of the Faculty of Science of the University of Porto, Prof. António Fernando Silva, and the Rector of the University of Porto, Prof. Sebastião Feyo de Azevedo. We also counted with the presence of our funding partners, Dr. João Matos, CEO of 2bpartner, and Eng. José Teixeira, CEO of the DST group.
A highlight of the visit was the making of a live holographic portrait of the President, thanks to the extended know-how of our CTO, Dr. Helder Crespo. This hologram of the President, one of the rare holographic portraits of a head of state while in office, will become part of the collection of the Museum of the Presidency of the Republic very soon, where it will be on display.
Bottom picture – from left to right: João Matos (CEO, 2bpartner), José Teixeira (CEO, DST group), Helder Crespo (CTO, Sphere Ultrafast Photonics), Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa (President of the Portuguese Republic), and Rosa Romero (CEO, Sphere Ultrafast Photonics). Photo credits: Presidency of the Portuguese Republic.