Credit: Muhammad ilham Marlis (Vecteezy)
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In this episode: Light-based underwater robotics shows promise for identifying untapped natural resources, the latest business news in quantum, and scientists discover an energy...
Credit: Adapted from M. Fanous et al., npj Dig. Med., 8, 506 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01882-x, CC BY 4.0
BlurryScope workflow.
Context-aware AR applications require optical systems to maintain readable, high-contrast information across changing real-world environments, which makes legibility and visual comfort increasingly important measures of performance.
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Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast
Illustration: Rohan Naidu/ University of Hawai’i
Stars like our Sun (left) may be thought of as a dense ball of gas powered by nuclear fusion. Black holes (center) typically grow by consuming matter via pancake-like accretion disks. Black Hole Stars (right) represent a new kind of astrophysical object—black holes enshrouded in dense gas so they effectively radiate in a star-like manner. The dense envelope of gas gives the black hole its star-like features. Black Hole Stars are >100,000 times larger than the Sun (~1000 au vs. ~0.01 au), but span a size similar to black hole accretion disks.
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Learning Resources

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Hybrid bonding is transforming semiconductor packaging with higher density, improved performance, and greater reliability. Learn how MKS motion solutions enable the precision,...
Aug. 20, 2026
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Optimize optical system performance with the right motion technologies. Learn how to select galvo scanners, DC motors, and piezo motors to improve speed, precision, and reliability...
Sept. 10, 2026
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Designing an asphere? Learn the manufacturing-critical tolerances — irregularity, MSF errors, slope specification, clear aperture, and center thickness — that keep your design...
Aug. 4, 2026
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As AI and data rates push high-speed interfaces to new limits, even tiny timing mismatches can cause signal degradation and bit errors. Learn how to evaluate, measure, and manage...
Aug. 4, 2026

Podcast

Lasers/Sources

Credit: B. Schröder/HZDR
A THz electromagnetic wave induces strong, fast temporal modulations that result in a photonic time crystal—a.k.a. a crystal lattice in time for photons.
In a breakthrough, researchers in France and Germany demonstrate a photonic time crystal—with optical properties that change over time—and it has the potential to dramatically...
Aug. 13, 2026
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Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast
This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast examines the increasing number of optics and photonics technician training programs around the U.S.
Aug. 11, 2026
FIGURE 1. Longitudinal multimode spectrum of conventional 488-nm Fabry-Perot laser diode (left) and of single-frequency DFB laser diode (right) with monolithic grating. Chip schematics are shown in inset.
Laser subsystems are a constraint in scaling quantum technologies, but advances in visible distributed feedback (DFB) lasers provide an alternative that offers intrinsic single...
Aug. 11, 2026
Credit: Vexlum
Vexlum’s CEO Jussi-Pekka Penttinen (left) and Stefan Truppe, managing director of the company’s new U.K. R&D lab.
Vexlum’s CEO and Cofounder Jussi-Pekka Penttinen shares how the Finnish company differentiates itself, why they’re expanding operations into the U.K., and three intriguing trends...
Aug. 5, 2026

Optics

Credit: Christopher R. Shelton
VAR Lab researchers capture the Liberty Bell with a Canon EOS R5 Mark II for documentation and photogrammetry during one of three limited-access scanning sessions inside the Liberty Bell Center.
The mission: A nine-hour access window to create a high-res digital twin of the Liberty Bell forced our team to combine four forms of optical capture and check every dataset before...
Aug. 17, 2026
Credit: Nvidia
Artist rendering of quantum GPU-supercomputing, with integration via Nvidia NVQLink.
Nvidia works with companies building quantum computers, including ones with photonics-based quantum processing unit (QPU) approaches, and provides a quantum platform they can ...
Aug. 10, 2026
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Celebrate innovation in optics, photonics, and quantum by entering the Laser Focus World Innovators Awards.
Aug. 3, 2026
Credit: Marcus Albrechtsen/Niels Bohr Institute
Illustration of the telecom single-photon device. A resonant pulsed laser (top left) excites a single quantum dot embedded within a photonic-crystal waveguide, and the dot emits telecom-wavelength photons one at a time into the on-chip circuit. Gold contacts apply the bias that stabilizes the dot's charge environment.
By silencing noise at its source, waveguide-integrated quantum dots now deliver transform-limited single photons directly within the original telecom band—making the premier quantum...
Aug. 3, 2026

Quantum

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Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast
This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features our Light News roundup of what's happening in the quantum sector.
July 28, 2026
Credit: MPL
This shot shows the group’s highly broadband and bright optical parametric amplifier in action.
By first amplifying squeezed light with a multimode optical parametric amplifier, researchers increase its signal without adding noise—and enable simultaneous measurement of many...
July 27, 2026
Credit: Yiming Gong
Schematic comparison of carrier injection through a) 1 + 2 and b) 2 + 3 quantum interference within a semiconductor. The higher-order 2 + 3 process concentrates carriers into a narrower range of momentum-space directions and produces a more directional photocurrent.
University of Michigan researchers use phase- and polarization-controlled two-color laser fields to generate a photocurrent within a semiconductor and control the direction in...
July 20, 2026
The different architectures of quantum computers.
Building qubits is one thing, making them at scale is another thing entirely.
July 17, 2026

Test/Measurement

Credit: ESA
FIGURE 1. LISA will use three spacecraft separated by ~2.5 million kilometers to exchange laser beams and detect low-frequency gravitational waves.
NASA selected Exail’s flight-proven lithium-niobate phase modulators for its Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) space mission, which highlights how industrialized electro...
July 31, 2026
Credit: STMicroelectronics
Combined multi-zone distance and infrared monitoring enhance flexibility to design powerful system features.
Advanced LiDAR modules can simultaneously deliver multiple data streams, including depth maps, infrared imagery, reflectance information, ambient light measurements, and confidence...
July 20, 2026
Credit: Thomas Walker
To build a quantum sensor, light must be prepared in a carefully controlled state where its frequency, polarization, and intensity are well controlled. The polarization of blue light is altered before it’s used to cool the atoms to near absolute zero.
Physicists build the first interferometers with the specific atom and transition needed for long-baseline sensors.
July 16, 2026
Credit: Ommatidia LiDAR
Ommatidia LiDAR’s Q2 laser radar deployed for noncontact field measurement.
Photonic integrated circuits enable a measurement architecture that turns parallel optical sensing into a usable engineering tool with faster setup, broader spatial awareness,...
July 14, 2026

Detectors/Imaging

Credit: Viktor Gruev, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The camera, inspired by mantis shrimp vision, captures ultraviolet, near-infrared, and visible images using a single chip.
Scientists are now harnessing one of the most sophisticated visual systems in nature—the mantis shrimp—with the goal of making cancer surgery more effective via more thorough ...
July 29, 2026
Credit: Surrey NanoSystems
Two identical bronze casts—one is coated with Vantablack 310.
Yes—a study by University of Surrey researchers shows Vantablack 310 and other simple material choices can make a real difference in dialing down satellite brightness to reduce...
July 20, 2026
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Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast
This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features our Light News photonics news roundup for July 7, 2026.
July 7, 2026
Credit: F. Kamphues, ESO/M. Kornmesse
Satellites crossing the night sky above the northern Atacama Desert in Chile during an hour. It’s a stack of a time-lapse video taken on October 15, 2025, about two hours after sunset. Some streaks are caused by planes, easily identified by blinking-colored lights, but most trails are from satellites. In the foreground is the dome of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, the world’s largest optical/infrared telescope, currently under construction atop Cerro Armazones. Behind it are the lasers of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory, 22 km away.
Study shows no more than a total of 100,000 faint satellites—below naked eye visibility—can orbit Earth without damaging our ability to observe the night sky with modern telescopes...
July 7, 2026