Photonics on the road to safer driving

In the Netherlands, by midyear they expect to have installed the first of several innovations that will lead to better highway safety and energy efficiency, Smart Planet has reported. Lights that are activated by passing cars, special lanes for charging electric vehicles while they’re moving, and temperature-responsive road paint that alerts drivers to freezing conditions are just a few of the features of this highway of the future. Watch the video:

Two companies, Studio Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure, came up with the highway ideas. The luminous road markings and temperature indicating road will be installed first, and the other things shown in the video will take longer.

Any one of these ideas would be a welcome enhancement, but taken together, an exciting new driving environment will be created beginning this summer in Holland’s Brabant province. By the way, this comes from the country that last year brought us heated bike lanes for icy streets.

Technology to monitor the health of bridges and other highway structures is getting smarter all the time, too. A conference at SPIE Smart Structres and Nondestructive Evaluation on sensors and other technologies to monitor the health of bridges, roads, and runways will start with keynote talks on fiber-optic and thin-film sensors that can be built into structures to monitor the effects of typhoons, earthquakes, and other damaging events.

And vehicles themselves are increasingly fitted with photonics technology to enhance safety, from LED headlamps, MEMS tire pressure systems, and laser ignition systems, to back-up cameras , night vision and head-up displays, and much more.

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#FacesofPhotonics: Rising Researcher Alina Zare

SPIE's #FacesofPhotonics is sharing the story of Alina Zare, Associate Professor at the The Machine Learning and Sensing Lab at the University of Florida. Dr. Zare was recognized as a 2018 Rising Researcher for her work in Electronic Imaging & Signal Processing, at the SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing conference.

This program recognizes early career professionals who conduct outstanding research in the defense, commercial, and scientific sensing, imaging, optics, or related fields. If you want to learn more about the program, the details are here.

Enjoy the interview with Alina!

1. Tell us about when you first became interested in optics and photonics. In my senior year of undergraduate studies in computer science, I was taking an Image Processing elective. I really enjoyed the course, and the professor for the class, Dr. Gerhard Ritter, encouraged me to do some undergraduate research.
So I joined Dr. Paul Gader's research lab as a undergraduate researcher where I he…

#FacesofPhotonics: Photovoltaics PhD Student Arfa Karani

Meet this week's SPIE Faces of Photonics feature, Arfa Karani. Arfa is a physics PhD student at the University of Cambridge, studying the physics of solar cells. She is originally from India, but has lived outside her home country for many years while pursuing her education.

Arfa was also President of the SPIE Student Chapter at the University of Cambridge in 2017-18, and continues to remain involved with the chapter when she's not hard at work in the university's Cavendish Lab.

Enjoy her interview!

1. How did you become interested in the optics and photonics field? Was there a person who inspired you?

My physics teacher at school inspired me. I got interested in studying optics because my curiosity was satisfied by this teacher, who was extremely enthusiastic about what they did. When you ask too many questions as a child, people try to divert your attention once they are tired of answering. Not this teacher.

I know it’s a bit cliché, but I was amazed by how one could cre…

#FacesofPhotonics and Women In Optics feature: IBM Researcher Anuja De Silva

Meet the SPIE Faces of Photonics star of the week, SPIE Member Anuja De Silva. Anuja grew up in Sri Lanka and now resides in Albany, New York, where she works as a materials and process researcher in the Semiconductor Technology Research division of IBM. Speaking of her work, she says, "I develop new types of materials and processes that help us to scale the size of computer chips... It's hardware development for next-generation semiconductor devices."

Anuja graduated with her Bachelor's in Chemistry from Mount Holyoke College and went on to get her Master's and PhD in Materials Chemistry from Cornell University. Upon conducting a research project for her undergraduate degree, she found her passion for optics and materials research.

"I have always been interested in math and science," Anuja shares. "The options in Sri Lanka, where I grew up, for a career as a research scientist were limited. My mother encouraged me to apply to college in the Unite…

Photonics for a Better World

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