Photonics for a Better World

Photonics and optics continue to provide amazing new solutions for challenges such as better healthcare, new green energy sources and devices, and more efficient and capable manufacturing processes. Every week, the SPIE Newsroom publishes several new reports from researchers about their latest work. Here’s a list (with links to the full articles) of just a few of the life-enhancing photonics advances reported this year from around the world. FIFA live in 3D at the pub and in your living room For the first time ever, this year’s World Cup audiences were able to watch some of the matches in real-time 3D without having to buy a ticket. The Federation International Football Association worked with Sony and its production partners to deliver two dozen of the 2010 FIFA World Cup matches held in South Africa, and several sports broadcast television stations in Australia, the UK, and the US broadcast matches in 3D as well. Gooooooaaaaal! Moth’s eye suggests solution for solar and LED re...

The last few weeks have brought some good news for the advance of photonics research and technology, at least in the near term. On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to authorize $46 billion over the next three years for the America COMPETES Act of 2010, continuing important basic research, science education, and other programs, and initiating new ones for green energy, science and innovation clusters, and workforce development. On 15 December, the Technology Innovation Program (TIP) at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced grant awards totaling $22 million . The TIP awards will fund nine projects in advanced manufacturing research in electronics, biotechnology and nanotechnology, and target technologies in fields ranging from biopharmaceuticals and electronics to renewable energy sources and energy storage. With matching funds from other sources, the TIP awards are expected to result in an estimated $46 mi...

It’s a great time to be in the field of photonics -- those were the words of Mike Dunne speaking earlier this year to a standing-room-only audience gathered for his plenary talk at the SPIE Photonics Europe meeting in Brussels. Dunne -- who at that time was with the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council and the HiPER project and has since moved to the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Lab -- is in a good position to know. He and NIF Director Ed Moses and others are at the forefront of work pursuing fusion as a source of sustainable, clean, affordable energy. Not only is that exciting science, but it’s an extremely worthy goal that will benefit people around the world and the physical environment along with us. My objective for this blog is to celebrate photonics research and development, with the help of guest authors from th e SPIE community and your comments as well. Look on Photonics for a Better World as a vehicle to carry the conversation -...