Photonics for a Better World

Guest blogger: Elizabeth Bernhardt, a physics research assistant in nonlinear optics at Washington State University, is  blogging on presentations at SPIE Optics + Photonics in San Diego, California, 28 August through 1 September. Dream big dreams, create amazing solutions: Paras Prasad offered inspiration in a talk on how nanomedicine can save lives Treating diseases in the human body can be incredibly difficult and certain cancers may even be inoperable. In the opening all-symposium plenary at SPIE Optics + Photonics 2016 , Paras Prasad, Executive Director of the Institute for Lasers, Photonics, and Biophotonics at the University at Buffalo, New York, told how he aims to bring treatment directly to the source of the disease, using light. Inspired early on by James Cameron's move  Fantastic Voyage (1966), Dr. Prasad imagined sending something tiny into the human blood stream to specifically target disease. He turned science...

Optics and photonics technologies are at work improving our lives in many ways. These technologies are what provide sustainable lighting and energy-generation systems. Nanoparticles are used to rapidly diagnose disease or derive 3D images of living, functioning cells. Optical resonators detect counterfeit or pirated goods. Airborne telescopes probe deep into the Universe while optical fibers send messages instantly across the globe. Engineers and scientists from around the world meet every August at SPIE Optics + Photonics in San Diego to advance research in several broad areas of optics and photonics. A few of the 3,000+ researchers who will present reports next week have provided previews via articles they have authored recently for the SPIE Newsroom. “ Multicolor rapid diagnostics for infectious disease ,” Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli, Chunwan Yen, Helena de Puig, José Goméz-Marquéz, Irene Bosch and Lee Gehrke [ref. 9923-28, Tuesday 30 August, 9 a.m.] Recent epidemic o...

Yosemite National Park offers stunning views of mountain vistas during the day and star-filled skies at night. This view often includes the Milky Way -- invisible to almost one third of Earth’s population due to light pollution. Artificial lighting is restricted in Yosemite, but some areas in the park require lighting, such as parking lots and pathways between buildings. Light pollution can not only have a negative effect on visitors’ experiences, but can also change the natural rhythms of the park’s wildlife. University of California, Merced (UC Merced) graduate student Melissa Ricketts has found a solution – by turning one of her professor’s inventions upside down. In an article from UC Merced’s University News , Ricketts describes what she calls “prescribed irradiance distribution.” Ricketts is a member of UC Solar , a multicampus research institute headquartered at UC Merced headed by Roland Winston, the inventor of nonimaging optics. His compound parabolic concentrato...

If you never thought something as small as a paint chip could have the potential to destroy the International Space Station, think again. Traveling at speeds upwards of 17,500 mph, the ISS could be torn apart by debris smaller than a marble in an instant. NASA is currently tracking more than 500,000 objects orbiting Earth including non-operational satellites and obsolete disengagements from past rocket missions. But the greatest risk to active satellites and space missions comes from the millions of pieces of debris that are nearly impossible to track. 7 mm chip on ISS window caused by a small fragment of space debris no larger than a few microns across An article from 12 May 2016 in the Washington Post reported the International Space Station’s recent collision with “something as unassuming as a flake of paint or a metal fragment just a few thousandths of a millimeter across.” The fragment left a 7-millimeter chip in a window of the European-built Cupola module. ESA as...

Photonics has already made profound contributions to such areas as medicine, energy, and communications to make our everyday lives more efficient. (Hence the name of this blog.) People in all walks of life benefit from the incorporation of photonics technologies. We look forward to future advancements when the technology may help find a cure for cancer, monitor and prevent climate change, and pave the way to other advancements we can’t even visualize yet. But here’s a photonics-based invention -- already demonstrated – that breaks ground in a new area: the backyard barbecue. Talk about hot fun in the summertime! The BratWurst Bot made its appearance at the Stallwächter-Party of the Baden-Württemberg State Representation in Berlin. It’s made of off-the-shelf robotic components such as the lightweight Universal Robots arm UR-10, a standard parallel gripper (Schunk PG-70) and standard grill tongs. A tablet-based chef’s face interacted with party guests. Two RGB cameras and a ...

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...

Simon Blackmore talks about farming with robots for precision agriculture in an SPIE Newsroom video interview [6:58]. Ten to 15 years ago, farmers used to laugh when Simon Blackmore and his colleagues talked about deploying robotics for such chores as weeding, protecting crops from disease or pests, or selecting harvest-ready vegetables — all while helping to cut costs and limit chemical and other impacts on the soil. Now, he said in an SPIE Newsroom video interview posted last week , they’re asking questions about how robotics and other photonics-enabled technologies can help save energy and money, minimize soil damage, and improve crop yield. Blackmore, who is Head of Engineering at Harper Adams University in Shropshire, director of the UK National Centre for Precision Farming (NCPF), and project manager of FutureFarm, also shared his ideas in a new conference at SPIE Defense and Commercial Sensing in April on technologies with applications in precision agriculture . ...