STUDENTS from a Hampshire University have been given a special invitation to attend the global launch of the International Year of Light.

A delegation from Southampton University will attend the prestigious festival which will be held in Paris today and tomorrow. The festival is a United Nations initiative to highlight the importance of light and optical technology in modern life.

The delegation will be formed of three PhD students from the University of Southampton – Vinita Mittal, Nicholas Wong and Matt Posner.

They will be joined by staff at the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at Southampton University, and two sixth form students and a teacher from the Thomas Hardey School in Dorchester.

PhD student from the University’s Optoelectronics Research Matt Posner said: “There is a huge sense of excitement. It will be amazing to hear addresses from Nobel laureates and leaders in the field of photonics. It will be quite an experience to see how our work fits into the big humanitarian picture that the UN represents.”