Photonics for a Better World

The first 60 years of SPIE's history have seen amazing advances, but what will photonics enable in the next 60 years? SPIE Student Chapter leaders will be among those creating the future. Several shared their visions recently at SPIE Optics + Photonics. Sixty years ago, in 1955, the world had not yet seen the first laser -- it had not yet been invented. Fiber optics were brand new, there were no artificial satellites circling the Earth, no humans had been in space, and the first solar cell was in early stages of development as was the first video recording machine. Smartphone? How can a phone be "smart"? In that environment, a group of engineers working in optics and optoelectronics to build the first scientific cameras gathered in a restaurant in Hollywood, California, to discuss a shared challenge. They needed to use high-speed photography to solve design issues and create capabilities in industries from aerospace to communications and to advance research. ...

The manipulation of light is a core photonics activity performed in numerous ways for numerous practical effects. For example, consider the design of lasers for purposes as diverse as repairing a retina to restore vision and downloading a movie over the internet onto a tablet for viewing. Anatoly Zayats and his team at King's College London have created artificial "rainbows" at the nanoscale. The technology has potential for use in solar energy generation, optical computing, and more. Amazing as those human-scale applications are, imagine manipulating multiple colors of light on a structure about 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair -- and then applying that for the very practical effects of sensing toxins, improving solar cell efficiency, enabling optical circuits for tele- and data communications, and improving flat-screen display. A team of researchers led by Anatoly Zayats in the Biophysics and Nanotechnology Group at King’s College Lond...