Celebrating women in optics, photonics, and quantum

Happy International Women's Day! Laser Focus World is proud to feature the work of so many women within the optics/photonics/quantum community, and to celebrate International Women's Day we’d love to share some of our favorite pieces so far from 2025:

This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features Dr. Andrea Armani, senior director of engineering and physical sciences at the Ellison Medical Institute and longtime professor at the University of Southern California. She talks about her new career venture with the Ellison Medical Institute, her love of teaching and mentoring engineering students, her perspectives on the photonics industry, and what the future holds:

Maria Chekhova, whose group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light focuses on quantum radiation, and collaborators showed that using a bright squeezed vacuum to generate high harmonics enhances their yields—compared to classical coherent light—and provides a route to probe material properties beyond the damage threshold:

A new theory developed by Angela Demetriadou and her colleague Benjamin Yuen at the University of Birmingham explains how light and matter interact at the quantum level:

Hui Deng, a professor of physics and electrical and computer engineering at the University of Michigan, and her team demonstrated that cavity-enhanced Floquet engineering significantly improves the efficiency and speed of integrated optical communications:

Natalie Fardian-Melamed, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University, and colleagues discovered photon avalanching nanoparticles are supersensitive to mechanical force—and nanosensors they went on to create are poised to redefine what’s possible in terms of sensitivities and dynamic ranges of optical force sensors:

Huihong Qian, who is in business development at Scanlab GmbH, describes tabless battery technology that offers a route to increase the energy density of battery packs, and how laser cutting via galvanometer-based scan system offers a manufacturing solution:

This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features Mateja Lampe Rupnik, CEO of Red Pitaya and advisory CFO to its parent company, Instrumentation Technologies. She has many years of experience in tech industries, and offers the unique perspectives she’s gained since joining the photonics realm, including on the growing and evolving roles of women in STEM:

Hele Savin, a professor of micro- and nanoelectronics at Aalto University, and her research team created a germanium infrared photodiode that’s 35% more responsive at 1.55 µm—a common wavelength for telecommunications—than its other germanium and indium gallium arsenide counterparts:

Birgit Stiller, head of the Quantum Optoacoustics research group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and a full professor at Leibniz University Hannover, is leading work pioneering building blocks for optoacoustic neural networks:

This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features Dr. Olivia Wheeler-Williams, coatings development manager at Edmund Optics, who has been named a 2025 Optica Ambassador, a position that allows her to help strengthen ties between academia and industry. She chats about  her work at Edmund, being a mentor, and the importance of diversity in optics: