Wiktor Piecek

Biography: 
Wiktor Piecek (ORCID: 0000-0002-7683-535X) received his Ph.D. degree in 1998 from the Military University of Technology for a dissertation on ferroelectric liquid crystals. He obtained his habilitation in 2013 based on his achievements in the development of orthoconic antiferroelectric smectic liquid crystals and their applications in photonic devices. 

He has held research fellowships at Vanderbilt University, Nanyang Technological University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is currently Head of the Laboratory of Crystal Physics and Technology at MUT. 

His research focuses on the design and characterization of functional liquid crystal materials, including OAFLC, FLC, PDLC, fast-switching systems, photoaligned structures, laser damage-resistant LC transducers, and blue phases, with particular emphasis on photonic applications. His recent work explores tunable liquid crystal microcavities, addressing strong light–matter coupling, tailored lasing emission, and topological photonic effects.

Title of the communication: 
Strong Light-Matter Coupling in Liquid Crystal Tunable Microcavities - from Bose-Einstein Condensate to Supersolodity