All Things Photonics

2022 SPIE Startup Challenge winner VitreaLab's glass-based waveguides are innovating the lighting and displays sector. Back from Photonics West (Jan. 2022), company CEO Jonas Zeuner details VitreaLab's laser writing technology and what it means for liquid crystal displays. In a preview of an upcoming episode, University of California, Santa Barbara scientist Joel Rothman discusses the biological i...

Jerome Faist, co-inventor of the quantum cascade laser (QCL), reflects on nearly 30 years’ worth of innovations in semiconductor lasing and the history of the QCL. Faist discusses applications in the terahertz and mid-infrared bands, frequency comb spectroscopy, and ultrashort-pulse lasing. Plus, how did the QCL get its name? All Things Photonics is produced by Photonics Media and airs biweekly, o...

The electromagnetic environment in which today’s soldiers operate is the focus of this episode, which features our discussion with physicist Kevin Cox from DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory. The advent of quantum sensors — and the applications that emerge in our conversation — range from magnetometry and accelerometry to the interferometric detection of celestial objects and chip-scale atomic timeke...

Serial entrepreneur and co-founder and CTO of Luminar Technologies Jason Eichenholz discusses the company’s technology, and shares his thoughts on lidar’s surge into the mainstream. The interview examines Luminar’s acquisition of its exclusive InGaAs chip provider, the (near) future of autonomous driving, and the optics and photonics industries’ technical workforce shortage. All Things Photonics i...

Experimental physicist Charles Falco expounds on the thesis that bears his name, and gives insight into his relationship with the acclaimed artist David Hockney — with whom he shares the thesis’s title. A panel composed of Alejandro Manjavacas, Silvia Centeno, and Andrea Schlather discuss the evolution of their co-authored 2019 paper that investigates the plasmonic properties of daguerreotype imag...

Moshe Safran, CEO of RSIP Vision US, speaks on the intersection of computer vision, AI, and medical-guided robotics. Johns Hopkins University’s Russell Taylor gives a macro look at surgical robotics — a field with implications for photoacoustic imaging, OCT, confocal microscopy, and other imaging modalities. All Things Photonics is produced by Photonics Media and airs biweekly, on Tuesdays. Contac...

Ivan Aprahamian, author of the 2020 ACS Central Science paper "The Future of Molecular Machines," kicks off Season 4 with a look at recent advancements to light-activated molecular motors. Applications include smart drug delivery and nanomedicine, applied spectroscopy, functional materials, and more. Nick Vamivakas, University of Rochester professor of quantum optics and quantum physics, discusses...

In the season's final episode, John Harvey, founder and CEO of Southern Photonics, shares his journey from nuclear physics to biophotonics, and from lasers to test and measurement equipment. The state of the photonics industry in Australia and New Zealand is among the points of discussion. Rohit Bhargava, Founder Professor of Engineering and director of the Cancer Center at the University of Illin...

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy is the technology behind a newly developed forensic technique for tire chemical analysis. University of Central Florida’s Matthieu Baudelet, who introduced the method in a recent Applied Spectroscopy paper, explains the approach and how it is poised to enhance crime scene investigation. Pierre Türschmann, CEO of Interherence, talks about how the company is work...

Bishnu Pal, author of "Frontiers in Guided Wave Optics and Optoelectronics" and dean of academics at Mahindra University's Ecole Centrale School of Engineering, is our guest. From his start in semiconductor physics to numerous collaborations in the areas of fiber optics, silicon photonics, specialty fibers, and optical materials, Pal walks us through his journey in optics and photonics, which earl...

Claudio Mazzali, CTO and senior vice president of technology at Corning Optical Communications, is our guest. The 2020 elected fellow of The Optical Society (OSA) guides listeners through an unprecedented 15-month period for optical technology, and shares his thoughts on what to expect from large-scale organizations such as OSA as they reemerge from the pandemic. Trends for a bright future in nano...

Eric Fossum, inventor of the CMOS active pixel image sensor, talks about the past, present, and future of imaging applications and the technology transfer in industry and academia. CEOs Berthold Schmidt (TRUMPF Photonic Components) and Adam Piotrowski (VIGO Systems), the two newest board members of the European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC), speak about their new platform and spurring photo...

Western New York (specifically, the city of Rochester) is a globally recognized hub for optics, photonics, and imaging innovation. From titans Kodak and Xerox to an industry’s reemergence from a global pandemic, New York Photonics’ Executive Director Thomas Battley discusses how one industry (specifically, one cluster) blends contributions from industry, academia, and government to drive economic...

Greg Quarles, former OSA chief scientific officer and current CEO of Applied Energetics, takes us beyond the defense sector and the combatting of threats along the electromagnetic spectrum, outlining current applications in directed energy. Tom Nugent, CTO and co-founder of PowerLight Technologies, talks optical power beaming - a technology that is closer than you think. Sponsored by: PerkinElmer...

2019 President of The Optical Society and Fulbright Scholar Ursula Gibson details her latest work with novel core optical fibers and their function in expanding applications spanning metrology, optical communication, and optoelectronics. Nick Harris, founder and CEO of supercomputing company Lightmatter, talks about silicon-driven advances in all-optical computing and Lightmatter’s photonic comput...

Frequency combs have revolutionized time and frequency metrology, making stops along the way to key developments in optical clocks, and, as it turns out, broadband spectroscopy. In a conversation that veers from interferometry to holography, and optoelectronics to solid-state lasing, Nathalie Picque from Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics shares insights about her latest research. UCLA's Aydo...

The latest in quantum computing and quantum optics is our focus, as Dirk Englund from MIT's Quantum Photonics Laboratory shares his insights on the latest in materials processing, PICS, photonics entrepreneurship, and more. UCLA's Aydogan Ozcan talks about his latest work, "Terahertz pulse shaping using diffractive surfaces," in Part One of a two-part segment. Sponsored by: MKS Instruments - www.n...

Jess Wade from Imperial College London’s Blackett Laboratory kicks off Season 3 with expert insights on OLEDs, chiral materials, and the not-so-clear-cut relationship between science and equity. Through the lens of SPIE’s very first Diversity Outreach Award winner, listeners will enjoy a candid conversation on topics ranging from polymer conjugation to breaking biases in STEM and beyond. Sponsored...

Chunlei Guo, from the High-Intensity Femtosecond Laser Laboratory in the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, discusses his work in laser processing, leading to the discovery of highly functionalized materials. Guo's research, including with black and colored metals, is addressing societal issues including global access to clean water. Chrys Panayiotou, executive director of LASER-T...

Quantum information processing has arrived at the cutting edge. Ian Walmsley, elected fellow of the esteemed Royal Society and provost of Imperial College London, guides us through the narrative of the field — from information processing and computing, to the evolution of science education and industry. Manos Anyfantakis, from the University of Luxembourg’s Experimental Soft Matter Physics group,...

Vice president of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Anita Mahadevan-Jansen shares her journey in and throughout biomedical imaging and biophotonics, including the discovery of infrared neural stimulation - and working alongside her husband. Garrett Cole, from Thorlabs Crystalline Solutions, stops by to chat about limiting quantum noise in laser beams, high-precision optics,...

Andreas Tuennermann, head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering, discusses his work with fiber lasers, quantum applications, and manufacturing in a global pandemic. Alejandro Manjavacas, from the Theoretical Photonics Group at the University of New Mexico, stops by with insights into two distinctly different projects: one with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and o...

Part 2 of our conversation with MacArthur Fellow Manu Prakash, who takes us inside his lab at Stanford and sheds light on the value of all that we don’t know. Episode 3 concludes with Sujatha Ramanujan, managing director of the Luminate Accelerator, and an assurance that there is no better time to innovate in our field of photonics. Sponsored by: COMSOL - www.comsol.com Photonics Spectra Conferenc...

Frugal science and the Foldscope microscope are among the topics we discuss with Manu Prakash, in part 1 of our multiweek conversation with the Unilever Colworth Prize recipient and MacArthur Fellow, who joins us from Stanford University. Prakash recounts the road to putting high-level microscopes in the hands of more than 1 million users around the world, as well as his earliest scientific memori...

OSA Vice President-elect and silicon photonics pioneer Michal Lipson launches Season 2 with a discussion on the evolution of silicon photonics technologies, her professional influences, and the emerging role of silicon photonics in AR, quantum computing, and beyond. Later, we’re joined by Photonics Media Senior Editor Dan McCarthy for his thoughts on our industry’s value chain and how we aim to re...