Photonics for a Better World

What’s in a name? The crew at Photonics Media obviously know the value of the right words. “Light Matters” is an excellent name for their video series on photonics news, and their tagline -- “It’s only five minutes to enlightment” -- is great as well. So my colleagues and I were particularly pleased to read Group Publisher Karen Newman’s comments about the name of the annually organized pavilion in the SPIE Optics + Photonics exhibition that celebrates the contributions of the field. It’s also our blog’s name, of course, and is shared by a series in the SPIE Professional member magazine -- newly open access starting this month. In her editorial published yesterday, Karen wrote, “Photonics for a Better World. I like the sound of that. I think it could be a great tag line for the industry.” We couldn’t agree more, and urge you to read Karen’s write-up about the life-enhancing photonics applications featured in the pavilion last August in San Diego. Sustainable energy, earlier disea...

Researchers and engineers in optics and photonics are watching closely, along with scientists from other disciplines, as governments look at serious budget cuts. Everything is on the table, but of major concern is whether science and technology will suffer a disproportionate share of these budget cuts. Ron Driggers “Science and technology make an easy target for government policy makers, since frequently these fields are not seen to have an immediate effect on any individual’s livelihood,” notes Ron Driggers, Editor of Optical Engineering and a superintendent of the optical sciences division of the U.S. Naval Research Lab. However, he stresses, science and technology have a dramatic long-term effect on everyone’s livelihood, driving the economy and changing our lives for the better in many ways. “Science and technology literally create entire industries, and one result is jobs,” he asserts. “The creation and maintenance of the associated jobs more than repays the initial invest...

What a great idea! Aydogan Ozcan's group at University of California, Los Angeles, have developed a way to use the cell phone in a lens-free computational microscopy system utilizing digital inline holography to create on-chip imagers. The technique enables in-the-field testing for diseases such as malaria from remote locations, enabling faster and more universal diagnosis and thereby helping to save more lives. In addition to Aydogan's interview last month with SPIE Newsroom in August 2011, more information from the group about the project and the technology is at these links: Ozcan Research Group website Handheld, lensless microscope identifies malaria parasites (SPIE Newsroom article from Ozcan lab) Smart technology for global access to healthcare (SPIE Newsroom article by Aydogan Ozcan)

Nicolaus Copernicus students explore optical fibers with kindergarten students as part of an SPIE Student Chapter outreach project. Members of the SPIE Student Chapter at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland went to a kindergarten to teach about physics, and came away with a powerful, life-changing idea for helping children with vision problems. Chapter member Danuta Bukowska tells the story: Like many other people with healthy vision, we had remained unaware of how difficult the lives of partially sighted people may be until we visited the Jan Brzechwa Kindergarten. One intention was to demonstrate special experiments in physics to the children. In the process, we saw how much work and practice on their part is essential for the partially sighted children among the class to cope in society. Deeply moved by this experience, we decided to take advantage of the resourcefulness and skills of young people who could put together an educational set of toys...

How I spent my summer vacation: volunteering in the tropics. Three student friends of SPIE Fellow Dr. Carmiña Londoño will have some great stories to tell about their summer break as they go back to school in the next few weeks. They spent a week this summer as volunteers teaching optics and other topics at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. Supported financially by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and the Optical Society of America, and by Kreischer Optics who provided lenses and prisms, Londoño’s group added an optics component to the arts and crafts, sports, language classes, and other activities organized by Orphanage Outreach . The students -- Lillian, Nora, and Matthew -- also spent part of the week hoeing, weeding, and preparing the orphanage’s gardens for future planting. For Londoño and Lillian -- her daughter -- this was the second such trip, and part of their tradition of taking a one-week volunteer vacation each sum...

Not only does Philips Lighting North America ’s 10-watt LED bulb have the potential for saving billions of dollars in U.S. energy consumption and avoiding millions of metric tons of carbon emissions: it’s dimmable as well.   The bulb has earned the San Jose, California, company the Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) — the L Prize — for a 10-watt replacement for the 60-watt incandescent bulb. Replacing every 60-watt incandescent bulb in the U.S. with Philips’10-watt LED bulb would save 35 terawatt-hours of electricity or $3.9 billion in one year and avoid 20 million metric tons of carbon emissions, according to the DOE prize announcement (enough electricity to power the lights of nearly 18 million U.S. households , or nearly triple the annual electricity consumption in Washington, D.C.).  Steve Landau of Philips talks about the prize-winning bulb in this SPIE Newsroom video: LEDs for wireless, too Researchers at the Fraunhofe...

The recent news from Brussels that the European Commission is proposing to increase research and innovation funding to €80.2 billion for the 2014-2020 budget has a decidedly green tint. Some of the money in the proposal to fund the EU’s newly named Horizon 2020 strategy would be earmarked for energy, and some to make the economy greener and more competitive. Examples of how photonics -- one of the six Key Enabling Technologies identified by the European Commission -- drives innovation in support of sustainability are everywhere. As an overview, Steve Eglash (Stanford University and Precourt Institute for Energy) explains in this video just what "green photonics" is, and talks about the integration of disciplines such as psychology, law, business, and physics. In a keynote paper presented last March at SPIE Eco-Photonics in Strasbourg, Berit Wessler (OSRAM) and Ursula Tober (VDI Technologiezentrum) provided a comprehensive look at the direct environmental bene...