Momentum story: Xavveo’s CEO Sven Otte talks production-ready silicon photonic chips for imaging radar

Manufacturing monolithically at complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) scale using established foundry processes means silicon photonics can now compete on cost and volume...

FIGURE 1. Comparison of level surfaces of the probability density functions of uncorrelated (left) and correlated (right) thickness errors.

Optics

Reliable monitoring of optical coating deposition processes is key to complex thin film elements

Resources

Photonics Hot List: September 11, 2026

Quantum

Building quantum computers from the qubit up

Resources

Photonics Hot List: September 4, 2026

Learning Resources

Sponsored

Bringing Hybrid Bonding into Production

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

Sponsored

Selecting the Right Galvano Scanners and Precision DC Motors

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

Sponsored

Manufacturing Considerations for Tolerancing Aspheres

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

Sponsored

Mastering Intra-Pair Skew for Reliable High-Speed Design

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

Lasers & Sources

A new record set for attosecond isolated light pulses?

In an advance for photonics and ultrafast science, researchers generate 18-attosecond isolated light pulses via a high-power Yb-laser platform.

Aug. 26, 2026

Handheld laser materials processing performed with compliant equipment and controls.

Laser Processing

Handheld laser devices for materials processing: From viral video to workplace risk

Part 1 of a 4-part series: Why should prospective buyers verify before purchasing high-power handheld laser devices? A device ordered online and delivered to your door passes ...

Aug. 25, 2026

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.

Optics

Can an all-optical photonic time crystal advance unlock the terahertz frequency range?

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

Optics

PODCAST: Tech training matters

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

Optics

A 20 Euro bill photographed via conventional camera on left, and with its security feature revealed via NIR device on the right.

Detectors & Imaging

Tiny ‘upconverter’ turns invisible near-infrared patterns into visible green light

A device created by an international team of researchers converts a near-infrared (NIR) image into visible green light that can be captured via conventional or smartphone cameras...

Sept. 3, 2026

Quantum

Diamond quantum emitter decoupled from vibrations may be a gamechanger

A newly discovered type of diamond color center has a desirable quirk: It couples to a single, stable local vibration that shows potential to be controlled.

Sept. 1, 2026

Quantum

Quantum-safe free-space connectivity?

Free-space optical quantum key distribution (QKD) is poised to be a connectivity gamechanger for ad hoc or remote networks, or whenever mobile users are involved.

Aug. 31, 2026

An artist’s impression of a frozen optical fiber core within a glass capillary that efficiently guides and couples light and sound waves.

Optics

Frozen liquid-core optical fiber enhances nonlinear optics response

When researchers in Germany froze liquid-core optical fibers to see what would happen, they discovered a larger-than-expected in-fiber Brillouin gain.

Aug. 28, 2026

Quantum

Is quantum computing playing out like mobile phones, circa 1995?

Quantum computing isn’t waiting to become useful—its practical hybrid phase is already underway.

Aug. 24, 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.

Lasers & Sources

Simplify quantum photonics: Visible DFB lasers enable scalable architectures

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

Quantum

What’s Nvidia’s quantum strategy?

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

Vexlum’s CEO Jussi-Pekka Penttinen (left) and Stefan Truppe, managing director of the company’s new U.K. R&D lab.

Quantum

Meet quantum laser company Vexlum and its CEO Jussi-Pekka Penttinen

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

Test/Measurement

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Bio&Life Sciences

PODCAST: Meet Jennifer Kehlet Barton, University of Arizona

Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast

This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features Jennifer Kehlet Barton, Ph.D., Professor and Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair of Biomedical Engineering ...

Sept. 1, 2026

Executive Forum

EPIC’s Jérémy Picot-Clémente talks to Opto’s CEO Daniel Kraus about his new role and AI’s future in microscopy

Jérémy Picot-Clémente, EPIC’s Photonics Technologies program manager, talks to Daniel Kraus, CEO of Opto, a Germany-based producer of advanced AI-enabled microscope sensors for...

Aug. 26, 2026

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.

Detectors & Imaging

Behold: A ‘black hole star’

Astronomers discover an extremely bright ‘Little Red Dot’ within the earliest galaxies of the Universe—dating back a few hundred million years after the Big Bang—and it appears...

Aug. 17, 2026

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.

Test & Measurement

Field metrology captures high-res scan of ‘untouchable’ Liberty Bell

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

Detectors/Imaging

Sponsored

LED Illumination for Spatial Biology

Fast, repeatable 365–850 nm LED excitation gives OEMs a competitive edge with reliable high-plex data for spatial biology.

Sept. 1, 2026

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Sponsored

Custom LED Illumination for Automated Fluorescence Imaging

Automation is reshaping fluorescence imaging. In life science research, pharmaceutical drug discovery, and industrial inspection, instrument developers are under pressure to acquire...

Sept. 1, 2026

Detectors & Imaging

A microscope designed around recoverable blur?

Automated imaging devices GANscan and BlurryScope show how acquisition and reconstruction can be codesigned—as long as validation boundaries remain explicit.

Aug. 20, 2026

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.

Optics

AI redefines performance metrics for AR optical systems

Artificial intelligence (AI) doesn’t replace the traditional metrics of augmented-reality (AR) optical performance, but it does change how optical engineers prioritize and balance...

Aug. 19, 2026