Selected Papers from RIAO/OPTILAS 2007 (Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, 2126 October 2007).

This special issue contains papers presented at the 6th Ibero-American Conference on Optics and the 9th Latin-American Meeting on Optics, Lasers and Applications (RIAO/OPTILAS''07) that was held in Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 21-26 October 2007. The RIAO/OPTILAS conferences are held every three years in Latino-American and Iberian countries and focus on senior and young researchers as well as students working in all areas of optics, mainly in these countries, but warmly welcoming participants from all over the world. The RIAO/OPTILAS''07 conference followed the one held in Venezuela in 2004 and precedes the next one already arranged to be held in Peru in 2010. The most active countries in the regions such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Colombia and Venezuela have registered a large number of participants but other countries in the regions such as Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru, Portugal and Uruguay have also sent a representative number of participants. About 7% of the registered participants came from Europe, the USA and the Middle East. It was very stimulating to realize that about 44% of the accepted registered participants were students. An international committee was in charge of selecting the best student posters and ten students were awarded with prizes offered by organizations (SPIE, Wiley & Sons) and individuals. There were 7 plenary invited talks given by high quality researchers from Argentina, Germany, Israel, Italy, Mexico and Ukraine and 12 invited contributions from Brazil, Finland, Italy, Spain, UK and Uruguay. The Book of Abstracts recorded 471 communications divided into 15 different topics with 160 oral communications in three parallel sessions and 311 posters in two special sessions. We are particularly grateful to SPIE, OSA and ICTP who have provided us with important financial support mainly devoted to supporting the participation of students in this conference. We also acknowledge financial and organizational support from Brazilian federal (CNPq, CAPES) and state (FAPESP, UNICAMP) organizations and institutions as well as national (SBF, CePOF) and international (ICO, EOS) scientific organizations who have enabled the successful development of this conference. We warmly acknowledge the efficient work of all members of the national and international committees who have participated in the organization of the conference and the reviewing of papers. We are particularly grateful to all those who have participated and delighted us with their interesting and high quality scientific communications. We also acknowledge the Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics for offering us the opportunity to present a selection of the most interesting papers presented at RIAO/OPTILAS''07. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]