• Optics

    The laserfocusworld.com Optics channel features articles and other content that discuss precision optical components, systems, and applications.

    Highlights

    (Image credit: Laser Components)
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    Optics

    Autoclavable optical coatings have use in medical technology

    Laser Components USA Inc
    March 13, 2025
    Designed for medical applications, the coatings can withstand countless sterilization cycles in an autoclave over the long term.
    (Image credit: Scintil Photonics)
    On the glove: A SCINTIL chip—a bank of 16 lasers monolithically integrated on a silicon photonic circuit and wavelength multiplexed.
    Optics

    Meet Scintil Photonics and its CEO Matt Crowley

    March 12, 2025
    In this quick Q&A with Scintil Photonics’ Matt Crowley, he introduces the company and shares where photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are headed—if you guessed AI data centers...
    (Photo credit: Chalmers University of Technology)
    Researcher Minghao Qi, a professor at Purdue University, with the team’s setup.
    Optics

    Optical atomic clocks get microcomb boost

    Justine Murphy
    March 5, 2025
    Atomic clocks and their accuracy are crucial for exact time of day and global positioning in technology like smartphones, GPS, and computers. Now, researchers are working to boost...
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    Podcasts

    PODCAST: Interview with Olivia Wheeler-Williams, Edmund Optics

    Justine Murphy
    March 4, 2025
    Episode 41 of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features Olivia Wheeler-Williams, coatings development manager at Edmund Optics.
    ID 42281235 © Igor Dolgov | Dreamstime.com
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    Optics

    Virtual roundtable: What impact is China’s export ban on critical materials for optics having?

    Peter Fretty
    March 3, 2025
    Optics company leaders share their thoughts on the critical material export ban from China to the U.S., and how it is impacting optics manufacturers.

    Recommended

    (Photo credit: William P.D. Hayes/Columbia Engineering)
    Natalie Fardian-Melamed in the lab working on a combo scanning probe—an inverted-optical microscope to explore single photon avalanching nanocrystal mechano-optics and photophysics. (Photo credit: William P.D. Hayes/Columbia Engineering)
    Test & Measurement

    All-optical nanoscale sensor of force changes intensity when pushed or pulled

    Sally Cole Johnson
    Feb. 27, 2025
    Researchers discover photon avalanching nanoparticles are supersensitive to mechanical force—and nanosensors they went on to create are poised to redefine what’s possible in terms...
    ID 190381515 © Funtap P | Dreamstime.com
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    Executive Forum

    Can silicon photonics overcome scaling challenges for AI and data centers?

    René Jonker
    Feb. 13, 2025
    Scaling silicon photonics for AI and data centers faces innovation hurdles in four key areas: Energy efficiency, manufacturing and packaging, ecosystem development, and cost optimizatio...
    (Photo credit: Chromacity)
    FIGURE 1. A Chromacity engineer aligns an ultrafast fiber laser with second-harmonic generation.
    Lasers & Sources

    Ultrafast lasers drive nonlinear microscopy, environmental sensing, and quantum technologies

    Wojciech Gora
    Feb. 10, 2025
    Fiber-based ultrafast lasers—with pulses of one-tenth of one-trillionth of a second—continue to evolve, and near-term advances will expand their use to materials processing, nonlinear...
    (Image credit: Focuslight Technologies)
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    Optics

    Collimators and lens arrays offer stable coupling

    Focuslight Technologies
    Feb. 9, 2025
    Standardized silicon/fused-silica collimators and lens arrays are designed for optical communications.
    (Image credit: iGii)
    Gii: A pure, porous three-dimensional carbon nanostructure poised to revolutionize sensing.
    Detectors & Imaging

    Breakthrough material for broadband photodetectors: Gii

    Des Gibson
    Feb. 6, 2025
    A sustainable carbon nanomaterial “Gii” is poised to revolutionize broadband photodetectors because it can absorb the full spectrum of light—from ultraviolet to infrared.