photonics

The U.S. Space Force has awarded BAE Systems $151 million to build upon Phase 1 of the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution (FORGE) Command and Control (C2) prototyping effort to deliver a prototype ready for the Space Systems Command’s Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared system. FORGE C2’s purpose is to bolster Space Systems Command’s missile warning and tracking ground mission.

The Overhead Persistent Infrared Battlespace Awareness Center mission control station where programs like Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution are used. Courtesy of the U.S. Space Force. QUEBEC CITY — Laserax, an advanced laser solutions company, has acquired DPSS Lasers Inc., a manufacturer of 355 nm UV...

Label-free imaging using two-photon autofluorescence of reduced form nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, or NAD(P)H, provides nondestructive, high-resolution, 3D visualization of cellular activities in living systems. Due to light scattering, however, this imaging technique typically can only penetrate as far as 300 μm into living tissues.

To enable deep imaging of thick tissues, researchers at MIT implemented multimode fiber-based, three-photon excitation of NAD(P)H with a low repetition rate and high peak power. They used living, engineered, human multicellular microtissues as test samples.

With this approach, the researchers more than doubled the standard depth limit of NAD(P)H imaging, extending it beyond 700...

A collaboration between Kalpana Systems, HyETSolar, and TNO aims to advance the commercialization of perovskite solar cells. The Perovision Project partners' undertaking is to optimize nickel oxide (NiOx) layers for perovskite solar cells using atomic layer deposition (ALD).

The goal of the Perovision Project is the development of a pilot-scale spatial ALD process for NiOx layers in a perovskite solar cell. NiOx can improve the efficiency, reliability, and stability of perovskite solar cells but is difficult to produce with high quality at an industrial scale. Spatial ALD enables the deposition of NiOx with atomic precision at high throughput.

This combination of precision and speed is crucial for commercial viability, ensuring...

Germany is funding a research project to develop new types of high-performance mirrors for laser fusion applications. Called SHARP, for Scalable Highpower Reflectors for Petawatts, the three-year project has a budget of €10.4 million ($11.2 million), with €8.4 million coming from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

The project seeks to create highly reflective and thermally stable mirror systems that meet the needs of future petawatt laser fusion reactors. To this end, the project will explore large-area and internally cooled high-performance optical mirror systems.
A researcher holds a highly reflective mirror for laser applications. Under the SHARP project, the technology will be optimized for laser...

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) concluded its Q1 2025 Technical and MA&E Committees Member Meeting with the launch of a high-density connector project as well as a new common management interface specification (CMIS) implementation agreement (IA).

The project will address current optical module electrical connector limitations in signal integrity, bandwidth density, power distribution, and control connections. The high-density connector project will produce a requirements document that addresses existing constraints and sets the stage for enhanced scalability and performance. OIF technical committee chair Karl Bois said that the project builds on work from the OIF Physical and Link Layer Working Group, which previously...

Aerosols can affect everything from severe weather to air quality. Polarimeters, which characterize aerosols and cloud particles by observing how they interact with light, are among the best tools scientists have to help develop their understanding of the role played by these tiny particles in atmospheric events.

Although there are many airborne polarimeters available to scientists, only a few of these instruments have ever flown in space. NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, launched in 2024, marked the first space-based science mission featuring polarimetry in over a decade.

“The composition of aerosols, the shape, the size – that's something that we really need to understand...

The stories that surround AI models trained on imprecise or incomplete language seem to follow a similar pattern. The model may show some initial degree of aptitude for the target task. Then over time, bias becomes apparent.

The silver lining is twofold. First, there is unanimous understanding that a more complete training leads to a more dependable model. And, in most cases, any of the would-be damage that a poorly or incompletely trained AI model might cause is identified well before the model sees use in the real world.

But there is no question that words matter when it comes to AI.

This notion occupies another context. Words such as “strain” and “burden” — insofar as they relate to the...

Quantum is still in its early days, but the technology has been heating up. During the last five years, companies such as Google, IBM, Honeywell, and Microsoft have developed quantum computers, and some now offer cloud quantum computing services. In 2021, the European Union (EU) launched the HPCQS project, which is aiming to integrate two quantum simulators — each capable of controlling more than 100 qubits — with two existing European Tier 0 supercomputers, located in France and Germany, by the end of 2025. Here, the broader objective was to provide noncommercial cloud access to public and private European users to solve complex challenges in areas such as materials and drug design, logistics, and transportation.

Market...

Industrial manufacturing has long favored silicon carbide (SiC) for its utility as a cutting material, exhibiting exceptional hardness that resembles diamond at roughly half the cost. Other desirable qualities, including SiC’s mechanical strength, thermal conductivity, and low density, have steered the material into the field of optics to be used as a thin, lightweight, and stable coated optical mirror substrate for space applications.

More recently, SiC’s distinct electrical and mechanical properties have been applied to gain efficiencies and reduce costs for power electronics. When manufactured as a single crystal (with sufficient purity and doping), SiC delivers a wide bandgap, high critical electric fields, and thermal...

The name heart cockle, despite being wonderfully sophomoric, is apt for the Indo-Pacific native clam. The moniker goes beyond the mollusk’s heart-like shape: It just can’t help but fall head over shell for a certain microscopic alga in its native waters, with which it forms a symbiotic relationship. In return for a home that’s safe from most predators, the algae feed the host heart cockle with a sugary byproduct produced via photosynthesis.

Biologists and other experts in the field might take umbrage with this proposition, as photosynthesis generally needs the sun to make the arrangement work. The heart cockle presumably realized this too somewhere down its evolutionary ladder and so has evolved, developing natural...

Through its X Development LLC business, Google has introduced the Taara chip, a silicon photonic chip that uses light to transmit high-speed data through the air. A blog post published by Taara general manager Mahesh Krishnaswamy last week said that the company has demonstrated the transmission of data at 10 Gbps over distance of 1 km using two Taara chips.
Developed by Google’s X Development business, the Taara chip is capable of transmitting data at up to 20 Gbps over the air at distances up to 20 km. Courtesy of X Development. The device is the successor to the Taara Lightbridge, X Development’s first-generation system which used a system of mirrors, sensors, precision optics, and hardware to steer light. The technology...

VIAVI Solutions has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Spirent Communications plc’s high speed ethernet and network security business lines from Keysight Technologies. The deal carries a value of $410 million base cash consideration as well as an additional $15 million contingent cash consideration to be paid at closing.

The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025, following the close of Keysight’s acquisition of Spirent.

The transaction, VIAVI said, provides a complementary addition to its ethernet testing platform and immediate infusion of software, hardware, and protocol domain expertise across network layers. According to VIAVI president and CEO Oleg Khaykin, the deal specifically...

Laserline, a developer and manufacturer of diode lasers for industrial material processing, has appointed Claus Narr as its third managing director, alongside company founders Christoph Ullmann and Volker Krause. Narr has been working at Laserline since 2011 and has held a variety of roles, most recently as managing director of the company’s subsidiary Backes Electronic.

(From left) Laserline managing directors Christoph Ullmann, Claus Narr, and Volker Krause. Courtesy of Laserline. HERZOGENRATH, Germany — Provider of deposition equipment to the semiconductor industry AIXTRON has designated supervisory board member Alexander Everke as the successor to the supervisory board chairmanship. Everke will replace current chairman...

Silicon photonics startup Enosemi has entered into a collaboration with Jabil, which will provide Enosemi with packaging services to support higher bandwidth interconnects within AI compute systems. The partnership leverages Jabil’s expertise in silicon photonics, in particular its Advanced Photonics Packaging NPI center in Ottawa, Ontario.

Per the collaboration, Enosemi's chiplet and intellectual property (IP) customers will be able to leverage Jabil's expertise to develop highly integrated packages with AI application-specific integrated circuits and photonic chips.

Enosemi, which emerged from stealth in 2023, has existing 1.6 terabit/s photonic chiplets and design IP. The company uses a 300-mm wafer manufacturing...

Rochester Precision Optics (RPO) has secured a $50 million commitment to boost its development and manufacturing capabilities. The company expects the funds to drive advancements across its operations and allow it to further compete with international manufacturers in the security, industrial, medical, and critical product sectors. RPO will focus on scaling production capacity, advancing optical technology innovation, and expanding its workforce.

RPO offers complete design to manufacturing support with high volume production capabilities. The company works with precision glass molding, polymer optics, single-point diamond turning, cleanroom assembly, electro-optical systems assembly, and chalcogenide glass.

In September 2024, the New York Times published a report on a spectacular flight by a SpaceX capsule carrying two private astronauts. The crew performed the first-ever commercial spacewalk, among a few other headline-grabbing feats.

Courtesy of ESA/P. Carril.

Notably, the last sentence of the article read: “They have also tested laser communications between the Crew Dragon and SpaceX’s constellation of Starlink internet satellites”1.

So far, most satellites in operation send and receive information via radio waves or microwaves. They use radio frequencies between 3 and 31 GHz (superhigh frequency) from the S-band to the Ka-band. Starlink, the company that runs the largest satellite configuration in...

As the technology world settles into 2025, the race is on to achieve 1.6 Tbps and 3.2 Tbps — speeds that are critical for the future generations of high-performance computing solutions for the data center industry. Hyperscale data centers, which are increasingly driven by demands from artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and software developers, require far more bandwidth than early-iteration data centers to satiate the global desire for advancements in medical technology, wearables, robotics, automotive, financial services, and other sectors. Large language models, at the root of AI development and machine learning, can only get “smarter” by having more data and faster times.


Courtesy of iStock.com/ipopba.
...

In today’s fast-paced digital world, speed is everything. Low latency is critical for enabling the need for speed, which can transform industries, enhance our digital lives, and create a smarter world. By reducing the time required for data to travel from one point to another, low latency can help applications to run faster and more smoothly, improving the user experience and ensuring customer satisfaction.


Courtesy of iStock.com/ imaginima.
However, current compute and network infrastructures must achieve quantum leaps in latency to achieve the performance needs of latency-sensitive applications. These range from banking systems with synchronous data replication across data centers to critical life situations, such as...

At a time when AI processors (XPUs) are firmly in the limelight, interconnects are the true unsung heroes of AI infrastructure. This is true not only in the present, but also with an eye toward the future. With trillion-parameter generative AI models now a reality, focus has shifted from the system on chip (SoC) to the system of chips.


Courtesy of iStock.com/Henrik5000.
This shift marks a profound change in the networking technology landscape. No longer is the principal bottleneck only the compute capability of XPUs. Now, it is also the bandwidth, latency, power, and reach of the interconnects that string these processors together so that they act in unison.

Copper’s reach as a physical medium for interconnects at...

Quantum technology companies Welinq and QphoX have partnered to develop optical quantum interconnects for superconducting quantum computers. The partnership will target the challenges that superconducting quantum computers face in increasing the number of qubits by networking smaller quantum processing units (QPUs) into clusters.
(Left) Simon Groeblacher, QphoX co-founder and CEO, and Tom Darras, Welinq co-founder and CEO. Courtesy of Welinq. QphoX’s fully-integrated quantum transduction technology enables the conversion of quantum information between vastly different frequency domains, providing the missing link between various quantum computation modalities and quantum communication systems.

Building on Welinq’s...