Photonics growth on the horizon

Meeting the challenge of successfully converting research into innovation is a major goal of the European Commission's Horizon 2020 initiative, as Thierry Van der Pyl, Director of Components and Systems in the EC's Information Society and Media Directorate-General, discusses in this new SPIE.TV video interview.

Organized to leverage the interdisciplinary nature of solutions to challenges in energy, lighting, communications, healthcare, manufacturing other areas, Horizon 2020 aims to improve Europe's ability to transform knowledge into applications that have an economic impact through the strength of public-private partnership, Van der Pyl says.

Photonics is truly a vital part of the interdisciplinary mix, and well-deserving of its recognition by the EC as one of six Key Enabling Technologies. The June 2011 report of the High-Level Expert Group on Key Enabling Technologies estimated that the 5,000 photonics companies in the EU directly employed 300,000 people. Further, the report's estimate that more than 2 million jobs in the EU manufacturing sector depend directly on photonics products illustrates the infusion of technology throughout the economy.

What's next?

Recent research advances in solar energy, fiber sensors, biomedical imaging, and other areas of photonics were covered  by Van der Pyl, Demetri Psaltis (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), Lihong Wang (Washington University in St. Louis), Kyriacos Kalli (Cyprus University of Technology), and John Dudley (Université de Franche-Comté) in Hot Topics talks at last month's SPIE Photonics Europe.

Industry perspectives were also provided, and can be viewed in video presentation format:

• Ronan Burgess, European Commission, on Horizon 2020
• Alastair Wilson, on ASPICE
• John Lincoln, on opportunities in photonics manufacturing.

The challenges exist -- and photonics is rich in potential solutions.

Restoring sight ― with photonics

Talk about changing life for the better: We've been hearing a lot lately about work by Daniel Palanker's group at Stanford University in restoring sight with a retinal prosthesis using a photovoltaic chip. In the video above, Palanker details the wireless system in the BiOS Hot Topics session at SPIE Photonics West last January.

The Stanford method is intended for people experiencing retinal degenerative disorders. It uses a photocell sub-retinal implant and an external projection system to relay images from an outside camera using near-infrared (IR) light directed to the photocell array, which is made from a thinned silicon safer that is flexible enough to match the contour of the eye.

The surgical implant is a simple procedure, and provides the patient with a near-normal gaze angle. Using light in the IR spectrum avoids complications from viable retina tissues.

Research team member James Loudin received the Pascal Rol Foundation Award, sponsored by Topcon Advanced Biomedical Imaging Lab, at Photonics West in 2011 in recognition of the work.

Read more about the work in the Stanford University press release or view the abstract and access the group's latest publication in the SPIE Digital Library.

Who's teaching photonics now?

It's Shaman, a great horned owl, naturally, featured in the video above with handler Sunni Robertson, a lead educator guide at the San Diego, California, Zoo. Robertson was presenting at what has become a very popular session at the SPIE Smart Structures and Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) symposium each spring.

Staff from the San Diego Zoo Animal Ambassadors program participate in a session on biomimicry and bioinspiration, demonstrating how studying animals can inspire ideas for solving design problems. In the case of the owl, insights for optical design were gained from studying how owls' eyes function, and for acoustics as well. Engineers looking for a way to reduce noise of Japan's high-speed trains as they travel through cities and across the countryside found answers in examining the construction of the owl's wings.

The zoo's biomimicry education program dovetails with a conference on Biomimetics, Bioinspiration, and Bioreplication, chaired in 2012 by Ahklesh Lahktakia of Pennsylvania State University.

In addition to gaining inspiration from owls, engineers and scientists are finding ideas for sensors in studying spider legs, for prosthetic muscles in honeycombs, and for broadband communications in the nanoscale structures that create camouflage for silvery fish in the ocean.

Pho-what-nics?

That's it! Science teachers in Nepal (above) learned more about teaching optics and photonics during a recent workshop presented through the Active Learning in Optics and Photonics (ALOP) program. The program is one of the ways volunteers sponsored by UNESCO, SPIE, and other organizations help share an understanding of the field and its importance.

Lasers cut the fabric for our clothing, and etch communication pathways on the chips in our computers and mobile devices. We make phone calls and send data over the internet via wireless broadband and fiber optic networks. LEDs light our streets and rooms, remote sensing systems assess ocean health and monitor water tables, disasters, and weather systems, and light diagnoses and treats diseases.

The fruits of photonics are everywhere. The products of optics are omnipresent. And yet, if you have ever been introduced as an optics and photonics researcher or developer, you know that blank looks are also common.

The terms simply are not household words, certainly not in the way that, say, “biology,” “chemistry,” and “physics” are.

Beyond the slight awkwardness inherent in explaining what “photonics” means (and the irony, when explaining “photonics” to someone who has just been accessing the internet on his mobile tablet …) the real problem is that a lack of understanding on the part of taxpayers and policy makers can impede progress toward new solutions for the challenges facing the world.

If the value is not understood, an endeavor is not likely to earn public funding and resources. And without the public side engaged in the vital public-private partnership, the pace of innovation slows and its vision is narrowed – and a major source of economic vitality is desiccated.

Photonics innovations feed economic growth through enabling new products and business sectors, and the industry is responsible for a significant number of high-value jobs.

In Europe, for example, the number of photonics jobs is estimated at approximately 290,000. The Photonics21 2011 Leverage Report details how many more related jobs are enabled by photonics technology and what that activity contributes to the economy. Extrapolate those numbers around the world, and you see some very impressive impacts.

Organized efforts are one way to promulgate an understanding of optics and photonics technology.

Last week, Photonics21 members at their annual meeting in Brussels talked with European Commission officials about the importance of photonics innovation.

Later this month, volunteers sponsored by SPIE will join hundreds of others to lobby in Washington, D.C., as part of the Science-Engineering-Technology Working Group Congressional Visits Day program. (View the video below for a look at last year's event.)

But you don’t have to go to Brussels or Washington or anywhere out of town to help share an understanding of the importance of the field of optics and photonics.

Tell your friends and family about your work, offer to speak at your Rotary Club or in your child’s classroom, judge or launch a science fair. Use your own stories, and find more in resources such as the Photonics for a Better World series in the SPIE Professional magazine.

Like photonics, inspiration is everywhere.

Here’s looking at you: remote sensing from space

Those eyes in the sky are seeing plenty. Researchers are finding more and more ways to use that data to solve the world’s great challenges and even save lives.

An article in the latest issue of The Scientist detailed several recent projects. Among them:

“With funding from NASA, Frank Muller-Karger, director of the Institute for Marine Remote Sensing at the University of South Florida, and his colleagues purchased more than 1,400 Landsat 7 images acquired between 1999 and 2003 in order to outline and classify the world’s shallow-reef ecosystems. Completed in 2007, the Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project produced the first uniform map of all the coral reefs around the world at a 30-meter-pixel resolution. The United Nations’ World Conservation Monitoring Centre is now refining the map in order to use it for global conservation efforts.”

The information the team has gathered is also useful for fish and wildlife managers and others with interests in monitoring ocean water quality. Muller-Karger is one of the authors of a paper to be presented next month at SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing in Baltimore on new products using satellite data for monitoring the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

A recent article in the SPIE Newsroom detailed another USF team’s work in monitoring the Deepwater spill. See images from their work here:

The Scientist article also describes using tracking of ocean temperatures off the Horn of Africa and of greening vegetation inland that enabled prediction and control of an outbreak of deadly Rift Valley fever in Kenya, Somalia, and Tanznaia; studies of the impact of invasive goats and vegetation on native birds and plants in Hawai’i; and a chance study of ocean grazing halos with valuable applications in managing fish stocks.

There are some common threads throughout these stories. One of them is NASA, in the news this week in connection with a new book by Hayden Planetarium Director Neil deGrasse Tyson, who also is an advisor to NASA and other space organizations, and next year will host the revived television series “Cosmos.”

Tyson wants people in general to get excited about space exploration, and would like to see increased funding for NASA programs along with that. But part of his ultimate goal isn’t about space research in particular. Just as space exploration accelerated science and technological progress during the so-called “space race” of the 1960s, Tyson sees scientific exploration and discovery as the driver for progress in the 21st century.

“The nations that embrace innovation in science and technology are the ones who will lead the world,” he said in an interview posted yesterday in the Cosmic Log. Noting the many spin-offs from spaceflight -- from satellite weather forecasting to to Tang and Teflon -- he said, "Spin-offs are great, but that's not even what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a culture that wants to dream about tomorrow, and make tomorrow happen today.”

And, he noted in an interview on The Daily Show last night, “Scientists and engineers are the ones who enable tomorrow to happen today.”

Boldly going where no space telescope has gone before: the James Webb

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will go farther into space -- that “final frontier” -- and add to scientific knowledge in ways no previous space telescope has done before.

Even before the telescope's completion and launch, the process of developing its sensors and other technology is already having an impact in fields such as laser eye surgery and manufacturing.

Check out these new SPIE Newsroom videos to hear first-hand from NASA scientists Joe Goodman and Lee Feinberg about JWST and how work on the telescope will, as Feinberg says, continue to “serve humanity for a long time.”

First, Joe Howard: "JWST blazes new trails in optical design."

And next, Lee Feinberg: "JWST technologies already bearing fruit."
 

Read more about the project on the NASA JWST website.

How many innovations do you use every day that began as space technologies?

Hands-on science: chemicals required

Cover of a 1950s-era chemistry set, as featured in an EDN blog by Paul Rako.

Do you know a child who is the proud possessor of a science kit? As much as you may love the idea of kids playing with science, maybe you shouldn’t feel too excited for them. As Paul Rako noted in a recent  EDN blog (“When kids really had fun with science”), today’s kits are not what they used to be. For example, one of the illustrations in his blog shows a newer chemistry kit proclaiming that it contains “no chemicals”!

Actually, after reading in Paul’s blog and his reader’s comments about what one could do with 1950s-era kits, it’s clear that while today’s kits have less potential for pyrotechnics and high-voltage excitement, that might be a good thing in some ways.

But it also brings to mind some comments made last summer by Marc Nantel, Associate Vice President of Niagara Research at Niagara College Canada, a Senior Member of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and Chair of the Society's Education Committee. Marc is dedicated to advancing photonics R&D, and also very dedicated to advancing photonics education and STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in general.

He is one of many educators who have become concerned about studies suggesting that the next generation is developing with inadequate skills in science and mathematics.

Marc noted that the fact that it is harder for young people to get a hands-on understanding of electronics these days doesn’t help. For example, he said, think of the old-style television or radio set. When it wasn’t working, you could take the back off and check the tubes or the wiring, and often figure out what needed fixing -- and then fix it, learning something about electronics in the process. You can’t do that with your new high-definition TV or your smartphone, not without already having the right diagnostic equipment and proper training.

So the chemistry kit may not come with chemicals, and a curious youngster can’t learn about electronics these days by taking them apart. Nonetheless, Paul Rako’s readers’ comments offered some interesting ideas about how to learn about science, with varying levels of hazard and ingenuity.

How did you explore science as a child? What sort of homegrown opportunities do today’s kids to have fun with science these days?