2025 Updates

Ateneo ROSES Laboratory Wraps Up SPP 2025 with Eight Papers
by Jenny Yulo

Thriving despite the thorns was the Ateneo Research on Optical Sciences, Engineering, and Systems (ROSES) Laboratory during the 43rd Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas Physics Conference (SPP 2025) held last June 25 - 28, 2025 at the National Institute of Physics (NIP), University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD), Quezon City. 

For the said conference featuring internationally acclaimed physicists and researchers such as Dr. Hung-Duen Yang and Dr. Enrico C. Paringit, the research group, through the meticulous yet formative guidance and co-authorship of the research head of ROSES, Dr. Benjamin B. Dingel, successfully submitted a total of eight (8) research papers across different fields — one (1) for Photonics, three (3) for Instrumentation Physics, two (2) for Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, one (1) for Physics Education, and one (1) for Optics and Photonics. And with these eight (8) papers published online through SPP’s website, six (6) of them were shared with the esteemed conference audiences through scheduled oral presentations, leaving the other two (2) actualized through creative poster presentations.

Day 1 (June 25, 2025)

During the first day of the conference, almost immediately after the opening ceremony and the keynote speech, Mr. Niel Mawen B. Getigan, an undergraduate member of the laboratory, presented in a poster the latest results of his ongoing thesis work entitled, “Lumerical MODE simulations of a novel photonic integrated circuit design using cross coupling and a 3x3 single waveguide double ring resonator,” under Photonics. 

This was then followed by the oral presentations delivered by Mr. Amante Joshua P. Dumalus, Jr., a research assistant at ROSES, and Mx. Jeniña Claire M. Yulo, another ROSES undergraduate, in closed-door parallel sessions under Instrumentation Physics — with the former conducting a rich discussion on the “Testing, Characterization & Engineering analysis of an array of Photonic Integrated Circuits-based Optical Ring Resonators with varying ring radius, coupling gap, and coupling angle” and the latter animating her thesis findings in the “Preliminary Lumerical interpretation and prospective application of the proposed 3x3-Coupled Double-Ring Resonator with Internal Cross-Coupling (3x3C-XC)."

Day 2 (June 26, 2025)

Starting the second day with a fresh take for Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, Mr. Ralph Jay P. Torres, with his poster pinned on a board behind him, explained to fellow researchers the “New exact solution families for forced Boussinesq equation via an extension of generalized tanh-function method.” Hours later, Mr. Ramon Benedict L. Lapiña, another research assistant, communicated with cultivated and young minds alike the project he not only submitted to the conference under Instrumentation Physics but also accomplished for the e-ASIA Joint Research Program (JRP) with the support of the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD) — “Simulation of a ripple-corrected asymmetric interleaver response using a non-cascaded multifunctional optical filter circuit.”

Day 3 (June 27, 2025)

With some research categories evading attention in the past days, the presenters for the third and last day of the SPP conference gave these fields their own spotlight, both in the poster and the oral presentations, before closing the event altogether. Sharing in that very spotlight were three (3) research assistants carrying the name of the ROSES Laboratory and theirs in the studies they gave voice to through their presentations. Shortly after the morning coffee break that trailed the final poster session of the conference, Ms. Alessandra Ilsa L. Molo, the only oral presenter for Physics Education, enlightened her listeners with a glimpse of the intersection of collegiate-level instruction and concept connectivity in “Innovation-oriented tertiary STEM education: The application of concept connectivity in modern physics.” In a separate room dedicated for Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, Mr. Edric Castel C. Hao introduced another approach in disentangling a similarly complex equation with “Solving the forced generalized sinh-Gordon equation using the extended generalized tanh-like ansatz method.” 

And for his second time around, Mr. Amante Joshua P. Dumalus, Jr., provided his audience an extensive rundown of the paper he collaborated with John Emmanuel Santos, Tim Jeff M. Rodriguez, Ramon Benedict L. Lapiña, Jezlor Villarde, Wayne Jasper G. Sy, Kent Emmanuel Soria, Kryss Urbano, and Marienette M. Vega for Optics and Photonics — “Impact of ZIF-8 coatings on cross coupled double ring resonator (CC-SDR) performance: A study on optical loss reduction, resonance extinction ratio and mode confinement.”

As the 43rd SPP Physics Conference came to a close, it rendered the research campaign of the ROSES Laboratory during the aforementioned event productive and successful as further knowledge was diversified, external connections were forged, and memorable triumphs were shared. Notwithstanding, a researcher’s work is never finished when the paper is published, when the presentation is met with questions and critiques, when the conference is ended — it has only just begun. Unlike a journal article that has a fixed introduction and conclusion that dictates the absolute scope of the topic at hand, the researcher behind every encoded word, equation, and figure is never confined to the novel ideas and discoveries they have already gifted the academe with. And the ROSES Laboratory partakes in that sentiment, refusing to stay in hidden silence within the corners of F-117 and thereby chasing opportunities outside the Ateneo de Manila University campus and outside the country — the group’s recent participation in this conference at NIP, UPD a persevering testament to that. Ultimately, beyond SPP, the laboratory continues to pursue research interests and ventures, both developed and unexplored, and welcomes new faces and challenges along the way — taking its own sweet time to smell the roses in research.