Photonics components and systems suppliers continue to innovate, solving problems while transforming the world. The Innovators Awards program gives us the pleasure of recognizing the progress that might otherwise go unnoticed. The 2020 honorees and descriptions of their products and applications are found in a special section of this issue (see article). This issue also highlights the types of products that could be candidates for an award next year, including novel imaging technologies, such as CMOS sensors and systems that have been employed at reasonable cost in high-radiation, high-vacuum, severe-electromagnetic-pulse, and strong-shock-and-vibration applications (see article).
While you may not think of art conservation, cultural heritage, and archaeological studies as key spectroscopic applications, the history of spectroscopy in these fields is a long and interesting one. Robert Chimenti discusses the growing role of optical spectroscopy in art and archaeology and highlights the results with interviews of several leading figures in the field (see article). Then, we discuss a low-refractive-index, hollow-core fiber that delivers faster data transmission over moderate distances for high-frequency trading, where a millisecond difference in data arrival matters (see article).
Life science researchers need bio-friendly 3D fluorescence microscopy tools characterized by high-speed, high-pixel-count, single-cell resolution—but most established techniques still involve tradeoffs that compromise at least one of these parameters. In this issue, we highlight the work of Professor Elizabeth Hillman and her team at Columbia University developing a new approach that avoids such limitations and promises compatibility with a range of specimens (see article). Next, we round up the latest in display technology from DisplayWeek, an annual conference organized by the Society for Information Displays. This article covers panel maker developments that span the range from foldable and flexible displays for mobile and automotive applications to AR/VR and light-field 3D displays, as well as TVs and giant video walls (see article). We wrap up this issue with an article discussing a new ArF excimer laser that includes a pulse stretcher, which increases the laser's pulse duration to reduce speckle, helping to reduce overall edge-placement error on the chip during the chipmaking process (see article). As always, I hope you enjoy this issue.
John Lewis | Editor in Chief (2018-2021)
John Lewis served as Editor in Chief of Laser Focus World from August 2018 through October 2021, after having served as the Editor in Chief of Vision Systems Design from 2016 to 2018. He has technical, industry, and journalistic qualifications, with more than 13 years of progressive content development experience working at Cognex Corporation. Prior to Cognex where his articles on machine vision were published in dozens of trade journals, he was a technical editor for Design News, covering automation, machine vision, and other engineering topics, for over six years.