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…

Lighting Their Way

It's a feast for the science-curious senses: in June, two cohorts of two dozen middle-school girls came together for the free, STEM-focused, four-day-long Physics Wonder Girls Camp sessions organized by Dr. Roberto Ramos, associate professor of physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.

The girls studied the properties of light, built telescopes, designed and engineered submersible robots, and learned about scientific professions directly from the experts: nanoscientist and Chair of Bryn Mawr College's Physics Department Dr. Xuemei Cheng; INTEL software engineer Dr. Marisa Bauza-Roman; and several female food scientists from Puratos, a global company working with bakers and chocolatiers to assess the best ways to improve their products, all came and talked about their professions, answering questions and interacting with the campers. Plus, they got to be on TV!

The camp was initially inspired by Dr. Ramos' daughter Kristiana who expressed interest in the s…

#FacesofPhotonics: University of Arizona Cancer Researcher Kelli Kiekens

SPIE’s #FacesofPhotonics is a showcase across social media that connects SPIE members in the optics and photonics community around the world.

It serves to highlight similarities, celebrate differences, and foster a space for conversation and community to thrive.

This week on #FacesofPhotonics we are sharing the story of Kelli Kiekens, researcher at the University of Arizona in Dr. Barton's lab. From searching for a way to detect cancer earlier, to ballroom dancing, Kelli is a woman of many talents.

We hope you enjoy her interview.

1. Tell us about when you first became interested in optics and photonics. During my undergraduate education, my senior design class concentrated on various topics within optics. The group project for that semester was a study of holography where we created different types of holograms using a few different methods.

We could then compare the quality of the holograms and see which were better. The part of this project that caught my attention is when we …

Photonics for a Better World

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