Photonics for a Better World

Among the #FacesofPhotonics: Student Leadership Workshop participants at SPIE Optics + Photonics Guest blogger: Emily Power is a 2016 graduate in communications from Western Washington University, and most recently social media intern for SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. She blogged on responses to the SPIE #FacesofPhotonics campaign, to share the stories of SPIE students around the globe. This is the second of four posts. One of the many perquisites of being a student in the optics and photonics field is being able to pass along knowledge to those who will follow your footsteps in the future. Throughout the #FacesofPhotonics campaign, it became clear that current SPIE students thrive on educating a younger generation while simultaneously working diligently on their own academic careers. In this post, we feature students who have educated others as well as themselves. Teboho Bell Teboho Bell is from the Republic of South Africa, and is...

A major focus of the International Year of Light and Light-Based Technologies was raising awareness of light pollution. With the rapid dissemination of LED lighting, one unfortunate side-effect is the proliferation of a higher color-temperature illumination. This has many documented negative effects on wildlife behavior and migration, as well as on human circadian rhythms. In addition, scientists are studying further problems in human health that may be indirectly related to different lighting, including higher incidence of some cancers. Meanwhile, cities and towns across the globe enthusiastically switch to LED street lighting. The energy savings are significant, but in news reports of the plans and projects, there is usually no mention of the technical specifics (or “warmth”) of the light. Early bright white LED streetlights were mostly above 4000K, whereas warmer versions are now available, 3000K or below. One problem with extremely bright light is that it impairs vision in da...

The photograph "Studying" by Handi Laksono captured in a home in Wae Rebo, Flores NTT, Indonesia, on  1 September 2014, is the People's Choice Award winner in the SPIE International Year of Light Photo Contest. A photo of a 5-year-old boy studying in a dark hut, with only natural morning light streaming through a small window, has been selected for the People's Choice Award in the SPIE International Year of Light Photo Contest. The contest was sponsored by SPIE Professional , the quarterly magazine of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, as part of the International Year of Light observance. SPIE is a Founding Partner. Captured by Javanese travel and landscape photographer Handi Laksono , the winning photo was taken after Laksono hiked three hours to the remote village of Wae Rebo on Flores Island in Indonesia. Wae Rebo's only lighting source is solar, either direct sunlight or a few small solar panels, Laksono said. He n...

Mars Curiosity Rover scientist Melissa Rice inspires the next generation with talk of exploring the Red Planet: see the video on SPIE. tv [23:55]. (Above, Rice at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab with a model of the Curiosity.) If it wanted to, NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover could stretch its 7-foot arm up from its 10-foot-high body and slam-dunk a basketball. Admittedly, it isn’t likely that any of NASA’s Rovers -– cars on Mars, as some call them –- will find any basketball hoops on the Red Planet. But the space agency’s newest robotic Mars explorer, the Curiosity, has found evidence of ancient lakes, captured images that reveal the composition of rocks on the planet’s surface, and done something many of us have done: taken selfies to post on FaceBook. Curiosity’s discoveries are far from over. The robot is just now reaching the foothills of the lofty (5.5 km, or 18,000 feet) Mount Sharp, with its mission to scale the peak and report back about what it finds along the way...

People often like to separate culture, art, photonics, and optics as completely separate fields. However, when we combine the four fields we can capture beauty that seems so surreal. Light plays a vital role accentuating hidden beauties, illuminating spirits, minds, and hearts in every culture. The advancements made in modern light technology has made it possible to highlight architecture, people, and objects. In the photo above John Danrev Bolus , has captured a “Night of Reflections” at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Bolus is one of 32 contestants for the People’s Choice Award competition in the SPIE International Year of Light Photo Contest . Judges have already chosen three winners, but now it's your turn to choose one more. SPIE is providing a prize of US $500 to the People's Choice winner. Online voting continues through 15 August . Bolus is very passionate about his work and is proud to be representing his home country, the Philippines, as a finalist for th...

Nearly all communication depends on optics and optical technology. Thanks to optical fibers, which are thin flexible fiber made of silica or plastic, we can transmit texts, media, and the internet through light signals over long distances. The internet allows people around the world to feel connected in a way that has never before been possible. Whether originating from mobile phones or modems, almost 100 percent of all telecommunications land on an optical fiber network. In the photo above, Ebrahim Elmoly illustrates how humans rely on telecommunications to capture historic moments like the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. During the Arab Spring riots and demonstrations in Cairo and Alexandria lead to the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and dissolution of the parliament. The word  “لحرية” on flag means "freedoms" in Arabic. Elmoly is is one of 32 contestants for the People’s Choice Award competition in the SPIE International Year of Light Photo Contest. J...

Light is critical to our circadian rhythms, the physiological cycles based on patterns of light and dark that repeat every 24 hours. Darkness during the evening helps signal to our bodies to produce melatonin and fall asleep. Morning light stimulates our neural signals for the brain to wake up. Disturbing this internal clock can affect our performance and health. Light systems, timing light exposure with the circadian clock, can increase sleep efficiency, alertness, and well-being. Scientific findings have shown light can also reduce symptoms of seasonal affective disorder, and Alzheimer’s disease. In the above photo, SPIE Member Jean-Luc Dorier demonstrates how light therapy glass can help reduce the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder. Dorier is a research engineer at SICPA and formerly a research and development scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Dorier is one of 32 contestants for the People’s Choice Award competition in the SPIE International Year of Li...

Humans have been improving photography since Aristotle ’s first observation of a pinhole camera in 350 BC, with milestones such as the introduction of the Lumière brothers' panchromatic plate in 1894 and Willard Boyle and George Smith ’s invention of the charge-coupled device (CCD) in 1969. Today, improvements to digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras, which combine optics with digital imaging sensors, have introduced astrophotography to the wider public. Since its establishment in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has used astrophotography to render inspiring images of planets, stars, and solar systems. In the photo above, Alexander Stepanenko has used astrophotography techniques to capture the aurora borealis -- the northern lights. The fascinating phenomenon is caused by the collision of solar wind and magnetospheric-charged particles in high-altitude atmosphere. Using a DSLR camera (Nikon D-800), Stepanenko captured the photons and thermal noise of the north...

Photonics play a major part in restoration of the look of a set of murals by Mark Rothko at Harvard University. Ramesh Raskar , a computational photography expert at the MIT Media Lab, and two students used the idea of light projection in helping to develop a method for art conservation, writing software to isolate the images’ colors one pixel at a time and restore the look of a set of Rothko murals. For the exhibition Mark Rothko’s Harvard Murals , showing through 26 July at the Harvard Art Museums, Raskar and his team worked with art historians, conservation scientists, and conservators to develop digital projection technology that restores the appearance of the murals’ original rich colors. The artworks had faded while on display in the 1960s and ’70s in a penthouse dining room on the Harvard University campus, for which they were commissioned. Deemed unsuitable for exhibition, the murals entered storage in 1979 and since then had rarely been seen by the public. Th...

Bernardo Cesare ’s photo (above) displays granulite rock under a microscope. The picture resembles a piece of stained glass window through sunlight, but it’s just a thin slice of rock 0.03 mm in thickness and 5 mm in size. The rock’s beautiful "interference colors" derive from the interaction of polarized light with the crystalline matter. Cesare is one of 32 contestants for the People’s Choice Award competition in the SPIE International Year of Light Photo Contest. Judges have already chosen three winners, but now it's your turn to choose. SPIE is providing a prize of US $500 to the People's Choice winner. Online voting continues through 15 August. This blog post features entries illustrating science and technology, including Cesare's, above, and four others, below. Future posts will showcase other entries -- follow the blog to catch them all. Of his work, Cesare says on the National History Museum of London website,“My aim is to reveal the ...

When SPIE Professional magazine invited submissions to the SPIE International Year of Light Photo Contest last summer, organizers had no idea what to expect. They asked amateur and professional photographers to celebrate the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies by submitting photographs depicting light and light-based technologies in everyday life. Would the judges have to sift through dozens and dozens of rainbow and sunset pictures? Selfies? Would optics and photonics researchers send images of their laser experiments or retinal scans? Perhaps the astrophotography community would want the world to see their latest scientific images from far out in the solar system? When contest submissions closed at the end of September, organizers and judges were blown away by the creativity, artistry, diversity and thoughtfulness of photographers from all over the world. There were a fair number of rainbows, sunsets, shadow scenes, and naturally occurring optical phenomena...

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which kicks off each year in Las Vegas and did so again last week, is a mega-event that identifies trends and gives some of the biggest gurus in technology a platform. The mainstream media covers it all with gusto. Of course the tech media is all over it too, with everything from product specs to analysis of tweets to see who the biggest “influencers” are . The good thing about CES is that there is something for everyone – but that’s also the bad thing. Significant developments or important new products might just be overshadowed by something with a bigger flash, but possibly not much substance. And there’s also the paradox of constant monitoring. As Junko Yoshida says in EE Times : “While consumers see the Orwellian implications of constant monitoring, they can’t resist the temptations to see or hear things that wouldn’t be on the radar without embedded cameras or microphones.” Of course photonics plays a big role in just about everything toute...

The great horned owl's eyes are among pheonomena from nature that have helped inspire photonics engineering. Spiders, fireflies, and pythons have all been responsible for inspiring solutions to challenges facing engineers working in light-based science and technology. As Joseph Shaw, director of the Optical Technology Center at Montana State University, put it, “Nature has developed, very cleverly, some lessons on how to create the features that we desire in optical design.” A highlight of the conference on Bioinspiration, Biomimetics, and Bioreplication at SPIE Smart Structures and Nondestructive Evaluation early each year in San Diego is a visit from an animal ambassador and handlers from the San Diego Zoo’s Centre for Bioinspiration . The center’s mission is to advance the creation and development of nature-inspired products and processes that benefit humanity, wildlife, and habitats. Past years’ animal visitors have included: Monty the Python [video 6:46] , w...

Being an ambassador for the International Year of Light is easy -- and we hear that it's fun as well. Solving the challenges of the 21st century will depend as much on photonics as the 20th century's solutions depended on electronics. Particles of light are the key ingredients for science and technology, from smartphones to medical imaging to synchrotrons. The United Nations’ International Year of Light initiative will show the world how optical and photonic technologies are vital to their futures and development of the whole society. Some very big names have already gotten behind the initiative, and will be investing much time and considerable money in the effort. In addition to several professional societies who are Founding Partners , two companies and a professional society have signed on as Patrons, and a very long list of companies, research institutes, publications, universities, and associations are giving their support as well. Even the Duke of Y...