Wavelength scale photonics in COST 268; a recap of work during 1998-2002

Summary form only given. COST 268 "Wavelength scale photonic components for telecommunications" is an action in the COST Telecommunications domain. During the last four years this action has performed work and catalysed collaborations around the themes of vertical cavity devices, photonic bandgap structures and novel gain material devices. In this talk I will overview some of the work done in the action, showing examples of modeling tasks and characterisation results for wavelength scale photonic devices. With the Warsaw meeting likely also being the final meeting of the action, I will also try summarise and estimate what has been the impact of the action for the area of wavelength scale photonics. I will also discuss the special boundary conditions and collaboration formats of a COST action. Unlike, say the IST R&D project, a COST action has a more limited budget, but on the other hand it has a much broader collaboration format, in principle being open for all European states, new member states, as well as for external members, say from US or Japan. This means that the organisation of the work in a COST action should be done somewhat differently compared to a normal R&D project, and that there are things that cannot be done, as well as things that can be done better in this format. For instance, in COST 268 we have co-arranged a number of meetings, such as this one, as well as supported a number of short term inter-laboratory visits, typically used by younger researchers. At present the whole COST as a scientific organisation is being under evaluation, partly due to budget constraints. I will in the talk discuss on what have been the COST 268 experiences and argue why COST can be a very useful vehicle for scientific collaborations.