RIAO-OPTILAS is the RIAO’s flagship triennial conference. It stands for Reunión Iberoamericana de Óptica / Encuentro Latinoamericano de Óptica, Láseres y sus Aplicaciones (Iberian-American Meeting on Optics / Latin-American Meeting on Optics, Lasers and Applications). The name RIAO-OPTILAS is usually followed by the four digits of the corresponding edition’s year.

The Iberian-American Meeting on Optics started in 1992, when the optics and photonics community of Iberian America organized its first edition in order to commemorate the 500th Anniversary of the Encounter of Two Cultures. This first Iberian-American Meeting on Optics edition was held in Barcelona, Spain on September 21 24 and was followed by the second, organized in Guanajuato, Mexico on September 18-22, 1995.

Separately, the Latin American Optics and photonics community had been organizing the Latin American Meeting on Optics, Lasers and Applications (OPTILAS) since 1984 (Colombia), and then 1986 (Brazil), 1988 (Argentina), 1993 (Mexico) and 1995 (Cuba).

In 1998, after a recommendation made by the International Commission for Optics, the Iberian-American Meeting on Optics and the OPTILAS organizing committees joined their efforts and started the RIAO-OPTILAS Conference series in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia; from September 28 to October 2.

Since then, the RIAO-OPTILAS Conference has been held in:

• Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, Sep 28-Oct 2, 1998;
• Tandil, Argentina, on September 3-7, 2001;
• Isla Margarita, Venezuela, on October 3-8, 2004;
• Campinas, Brazil, on October 21-26, 2007;
• Lima, Peru, on September 20-24, 2010;
• Porto, Portugal, on July 22-26, 2013;
• Pucón, Chile, on November 21-25, 2016;
• Cancún, Mexico, on September 23-27; 2019; and
• San José, Costa Rica, on March 27-31, 2023.

Upcoming event: Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on November 17-21, 2025