Peak-power wall.
Long upper-state lifetimes of thulium-hosted crystals offer bypass of prohibitive diode infrastructure costs that bottleneck low-repetition-rate, multi-joule laser architectures...
Credit: MPL
This shot shows the group’s highly broadband and bright optical parametric amplifier in action.
Credit: Asih Wahyuni (Vecteezy)
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Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast
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.
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Learning Resources

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Sponsored
This presentation explores how metasurfaces and metalenses are transforming optical systems by replacing bulky lenses with ultrathin, multifunctional surfaces, enabling new capabilities...
Aug. 27, 2026
Courtesy of PI Americas (Physik Instrumente)
White paper
Sponsored
How PI's FMPA Photonic Alignment Technology Enabled an Industry - and Will Benefit Yours
June 9, 2026
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Sponsored
This paper reviews advances in precision motion control for photonics alignment and laser material processing, highlighting micro-hole drilling, new control algorithms, and hybrid...
June 4, 2026
spectroscopy
Sponsored
Explore how ultrafast imaging tools can track lattice dynamics and carrier behavior during critical material changes. Register now.
July 15, 2026

Podcast

Lasers/Sources

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
OPTOMAN high-power laser optics.
A local presence helps customers define the right optical problem earlier, connect system requirements with coating expertise, and reduce risks of a technically advanced optic...
July 9, 2026
© Endeavor Business Media
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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
FIGURE 1. Top: An OFC generated by a modelocked laser. Bottom: A periodic pulse train in the time domain corresponds to a series of discrete frequencies in the frequency domain. The frequency comb is shifted in frequency space by a carrier-envelope offset frequency fceo, which arises from the carrier envelope phase slip Δφ between successive pulses. Apart from this offset, the comb consists of equally spaced spectral lines separated by the repetition rate frep.
Primer: Fundamentals of ultralow-noise frequency comb technology and how to transfer spectral purity without degradation across broad optical bandwidths.
July 1, 2026

Optics

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
© Endeavor Business Media
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Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast
This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features Maurice Steinman, senior VP and general manager of the U.S. division of Lightelligence.
July 14, 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
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

Quantum

The different architectures of quantum computers.
Building qubits is one thing, making them at scale is another thing entirely.
July 17, 2026
FIGURE 1. a) Schematics of Wheeler’s words. b) The Pryce-Ward γ-ray quantum entanglement experiment using a positron-electron annihilation source.
Beyond its enormous practical usefulness, quantum mechanics expands the horizons of our reality.
June 29, 2026
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Takeaways from the 2026 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) include the event's focus on quantum research.
June 17, 2026
Credit: Caroline Perron
Pierre Luc Thériault, a Ph.D. student in engineering physics, aligns the team’s experimental setup.
A new type of organic thin film manipulates light in ways not currently possible on today’s silicon photonic chips—and placing it directly onto silicon opens the door to optical...
June 2, 2026

Test/Measurement

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
Working principle of the Fourier-optics-based angle-resolved imaging spectrometer.
A deep neural network that learns from large-scale experimental optical data—rather than repeated electromagnetic simulations—can rapidly predict device performance, explore large...
June 25, 2026
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Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast
This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features Part Two of our interview with Giacomo Vacca, founder, president, and CEO of Kinetic River.
June 16, 2026
Credit: Zheru Qiu/EPFL
Zheru Qiu and colleague Xuan Yang in the lab with the team’s on-chip ultrafast laser.
Yes—finally! Generation of intense ultrafast pulses directly on chip brings a new capability to photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and enables integration of more functionalities...
June 12, 2026

Detectors/Imaging

Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA
Rubin’s 1.7-gigapixel image of a field of stars within the constellation Lupus gives us an unprecedented view of the Universe. Faint, glowing clouds spread across this image are galactic cirrus—clouds of interstellar gas and dust found in the foreground of the Milky Way.
Rubin’s 10-Year Legacy Survey of Space and Time will scan the night skies to create a time-lapse record of the Universe.
June 30, 2026
Credit: Cirrus Logic
Bringing signal conversion closer to the sensor unlocks new performance gains.
As systems continue to scale in speed, density, and level of integration, future gains in imaging performance will be a result of architectural decisions as much as advances in...
June 25, 2026
Yu-Jie Lin (left) holds the metalens the group developed, and Professor Zhiwen Liu is on his right.
A metalens confocal imaging approach goes beyond miniaturizing an existing confocal microscope by using the spectrum of light as its depth scanner—rather than mechanically shifting...
June 17, 2026
Credit: Wolf/TU Graz
Birgitta Bernhardt in the lab with the retroreflector counterpart to her mobile UV dual-comb spectrometer.
In an advance for spectroscopy, a mobile ultraviolet (UV) dual-comb spectrometer is so precise it helped correct rotational constants of formaldehyde—which has been incorrect ...
June 11, 2026