All Things Photonics

“All Things Photonics” broadcasts from SPIE Optifab 2023 in Rochester, N.Y. In this episode from the heart of the optics industry, we speak with Chunlei Guo, from the University of Rochster’s Institute of Optics, and Carolyn McMorran, from central Florida’s Valencia College. Guo and his collaborators recently advanced their acclaimed fano-resonant optical coating technology, and our conversation s...

Photonic technologies like lab-on-a-chip are taking out a lot of the head-scratching and tedium that goes along with traditional diagnostic methods, giving patients and clinicians access to technology that is cheaper, quicker, and often more reliable. Andrea Armani, the Ray Irani Chair in Engineering and Materials Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, is working at the forefront of thi...

Longtime photonics market analyst and current industry adviser Tom Hausken delivers his expert insights into top-of-mind trends and drivers for the photonics sector. The prevalence of AI in and for photonics technologies permeates a conversation that also explores integrated photonics workforce development, government and policy perspectives, and technological competitiveness. Sponsored by: Teledy...

The Precise Advanced Technologies and Health Systems for Underserved Populations initiative, or PATHS-UP, aims to integrate engineering research and education with technological innovation to transform national prosperity, health, and security. The National Science Foundation-funded collaboration also extends into industry, to ensure that positive R&D outcomes ascend into use in the wider comm...

Microelectronics technology innovation and, more notably, recent legislation have brought to the fore the need for a unified strategy to ensure sustained positive outcomes in today’s semiconductor environment. Walter Burgess, co-CEO, Sales & Engineering at Power Technology Inc., is helping to spearhead many of the efforts that business and technology leaders in Arkansas are commencing to ensur...

As separate disciplines, quantum science and integrated photonics are pushing the bounds of possibility in communication science, compute, data processing, and more. In tandem, the two realms are highly complementary. Matt Eichenfield, the SPIE Endowed Chair in Optical Sciences and associate professor of optical sciences at the University of Arizona Wyant College of Optical Sciences, spotlights qu...

The changing nature of the "optics shop" — and, more broadly, its role in the optics and photonics industry today — is an effective gauge for tracking how optics workforce development is aligned to the ever-evolving needs of the industry. Recounting his own 40-plus-year professional journey, Paul Melone, global optics manufacturing director at Thorlabs, discusses his company’s ties to AmeriCOM (Am...

The brain trust of holographic extended reality startup Swave Photonics discusses the company’s scalable holographic chip technology. Company founder and chief product officer Theodore Marescaux and CEO Mike Noonen outline Swave’s diffractive photonics technology and inform on the company’s future plans following its first-place finish in the 2023 SPIE Startup Challenge at Photonics West 2023.   “...

With its goal to cultivate and foster photonics-driven progress in the Netherlands, PhotonDelta today is a burgeoning cross-border ecosystem of photonic chip technology organizations. Around the central technology area of integrated photonics, the ecosystem's current aim is to leverage decades of expertise and dozens of strategic partnerships to create a production capacity of 100,000+ wafer per y...

Three-and-a-half months after December 2022's breakthrough experimental result that yielded fusion ignition, Jean-Michel Di Nicola, chief engineer of laser systems at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and acting program co-director for laser science and system engineering at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, provides an update on sustained progress in fusion science. Di Nicola takes liste...

Rohit Bhargava, director of the Cancer Center at Illinois, follows his Photonics West 2023 Optical Biopsy Conference keynote with a discussion on increased utility in infrared spectroscopic imaging. Discussion points include the advent of the quantum cascade laser, the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning for optimized workflows, and optimizations in instrumentation leading to impr...

In a world characterized by massive quantities of (often unusable) information sources, many facets of society have great need to turn raw data into an actionable tool. Bruno Sanguinetti, co-founder of Dotphoton, discusses his company’s solution that aims to harness the full potential of image data, taking data in its raw form and transforming it for the benefit of the medical, aerospace and defen...

Isiah Warner, Boyd Professor and Emeritus Philip W. West Professor, Analytical & Environmental Chemistry, and former vice president for strategic initiatives at Louisiana State University (LSU), reflects on 20th- and 21st-century milestones in fluorescence science, as well as his own contributions to academic mentorship. The acclaimed spectroscopist has helped bring LSU’s total of African Amer...

Metalenz co-founder and CEO Rob Devlin recounts a decade of progress in the field of meta-optics, culminating in his company’s rollout of commercial products and technology offerings. Devlin’s insights span the growth of the market, current and forthcoming applications, and recollections of his time working in the group of photonics luminary Federico Capasso. “All Things Photonics”® is produced by...

Two lidar imaging use cases are explored. In segment one, the Texas Water Development Board’s Joey Thomas and Saul Nuccitelli explain how the organization uses topobathymetric lidar to help prevent flooding along the South Llano River. Later, the collaborative team of Kathryn Reese-Taylor, Felix Kupprat, and Juan Carlos Fernandez Diaz employs the method to investigate beneath the Calakmul biospher...

From on scene at Optica's Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science Show in Rochester, N.Y., All Things Photonics speaks with S.J. Ben Yoo, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of California, Davis and Daniil Lukin, of the Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab at Stanford University. Plus, an exclusive conversation with the newly crowned winner of...

Brian Pogue, professor and chair of the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin and the Maclean Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth College, is our guest. The episode explores the (sometimes conflict-characterized) relationship between industry and medicine, as well as cancer therapies and diagnostics, the evolution of standards, and biomedical device productization. These s...

NIL Technologies CEO and founder Theodor Nielsen discusses the road to commercialization for meta-optical elements, metalenses, diffractive optical elements, and other ultrasmall components. The interview spans the complete product life cycle — from conceptualization and design to fabrication and market placement, and focuses on high-growth, high potential industries at a critical juncture for the...

Nobel laureate Donna Strickland joins Francois Légaré and Heide Ibrahim from the Advanced Laser Light Source Laboratory (ALLS), located outside Montreal. The panel discusses the specifications of the ALLS laser systems, their functionality, and their applications in molecular imaging, agriculture, and metrology. Jan Lagerwall, head of the Experimental Soft Matter Physics group at the University of...

David Boas, director of the Boston University Neurophotonics Center, is our guest. The episode introduces techniques including functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), laser speckle contrast imaging, optical coherence tomography (OCT), and interferometric diffuse correlation spectroscopy, with expert insight on the advances and neurophotonic applications for each method. Boas is founding edi...

Chandra Breanne Curry, coordinator of the LaserNetUS consortium, offers insights into high-intensity laser systems, supported applications, and an update on fusion science. The 10-system consortium supports research across disciplines, from biomedical science to plasma physics. Miriam Vitiello, director of research at the National Research Council of Italy, professor of condensed matter physics at...

Silicon photonics pioneer and President of Luminous Computing Michael Hochberg joins Luminous’ CEO Marcus Gomez for a conversation about advancing AI supercomputing. The company’s photonic approach is supported by a recently announced $105 million Series A award from investors including Bill Gates. A second segment revisits the notion of sending invertebrate organisms into space with help from opt...

UCLA researcher Mona Jarrahi breaks down critical achievements in the terahertz domain, with particular focus on terahertz optoelectronics. Biomedical, plasmonic, and imaging applications are explored, as are commercial pursuits. In advance of the inaugural Photonics Spectra Spectroscopy conference April 12-13, Richard Crocombe, principal at Crocombe Spectroscopy Consulting, and Ellen Miseo, presi...

Bob Hess, one of the world’s leading collectors of lasers, laser accessories, and holograms, takes us through his exhibit, "Vintage Lasers & Holograms," on now in Tempe, Ariz. Hess is a career holographer and photonics technician, and his collection features more than 500 lasers and upward of 600 holograms. Also, a check-in with the University of Southampton's Pearl John to discuss the artform...

Building on the first episode of the season, University of California, Santa Barbara scientists Philip Lubin and Joel Rothman discuss Project Starlight, a NASA project that intends to send microscopic worms — among other creatures — into space. Lubin, the brainpower behind the directed energy facet of the project, identifies the considerable photonic advances that must be made before achieving atm...