Sensores

Microlenses, micrometer-sized lenses that capture and focus light into intense beams at a microscopic scale, typically require complex, expensive machinery and extreme temperatures or pressures to produce. A bioinspired approach to making microlenses, based on the enzymes secreted by sea sponges, could offer a way to create inexpensive, durable, advanced microlenses for use in medicine, biology, and materials science.

Sea sponges grow glass skeletons made of silica (also called bioglass). This silica skeleton is both lightweight and resilient, allowing the sea sponge to withstand harsh marine environments.
Graduate student Lynn Sidor prepares bacteria cells that will self-assemble their own glass coating by using enzymes from sea...

For decades, end users and systems designers have valued radar technology for its reliability. Especially in adverse weather conditions in which sensors based on other modalities are apt to fail, radar is a dependable technique offering broad application potential.

As a result of this robustness and widespread applicability, radar today is established as a standard sensing system in several high-growth technology sectors. The automotive industry, for example, has been a key driver of radar sensor miniaturization and overall performance improvements. The commercialization of radar for passenger vehicles predates the turn of the century, and radar sensors are also now commonly deployed in advanced driver-assistance systems, including...

Last spring, electronics giant Toshiba announced its plans to ship its first test sample hard disk drives (HDDs) using heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology. Toshiba, at the time of the announcement, said that it is targeting 2025 for the shipment.


Courtesy of iStock.com/Remitski.
The decision as well as the technological advancement represent an emerging movement in the data storage and photonics industries. Toshiba’s debut of its HAMR HDDs, with 28 to 30 Tb of storage, follows Seagate Technology’s rollout of similar technology in 2017, following 15 years of research.

With Toshiba and Seagate expecting to be working toward mass-producing HAMR HDDs with 32 Tb of storage capacity by next year,...

The remarkable capabilities of human vision serve as a powerful inspiration to developers of advanced optical systems. Despite its seemingly uncomplicated design, comprising a single lens and offering about ~1 MP of resolution per eye, human vision achieves exceptional performance. For this reason, designers and engineers strive to replicate and even surpass its capabilities.


Courtesy of iStock.com/tein-studio.
Yet while the capabilities of human vision provide a dynamic reference, creating vision systems that deliver high magnification, small pixel sizes, and low f-numbers — especially in low-light conditions — poses substantial challenges. These factors tend to reduce the depth of field, necessitating precise...

Optical fibers are well known and widely used as the transmission medium for optical communications. Due to the rapid increase of technology and service demand that has characterized modern optical data and telecommunications, optical fibers are necessary to use as optical amplifiers for long-haul transmission.

The most suitable example of this evolution was the development of the erbium-doped fiber amplifier. This device consists of a laser-active gain medium that enables the amplification of optical signals of 1.55 µm. Similarly, ytterbium-doped fibers (YDFs) are now an established solution supporting the growth of manufacturing and materials processing, owing to their suitability for high-power generation with a superior beam...

By its definition, the notion of “sensor fusion” allows for the possibility of combining data from one sensing modality with virtually any other. Motion tracking provides a classic trimodal sensor fusion: The fusion of accelerometric, magnetometric, and gyroscopic data delivers precise information relative to location. In this case, the differences in the measurables that each individual sensing modality tracks are quite subtle.

At the same time, the modalities themselves are highly complementary. In combination, data obtained via each type of sensor delivers the utmost precision in determining orientation.

Sensor fusion can be far less nuanced, at least in terms of the sensors used. In 1997, for example, a paper...

LASER-TEC is the Center for Laser and Fiber Optics Education, founded in 2013 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and headquartered at Indian River State College in Florida. It was established to help meet the goals of educating and sourcing domestic talent in the areas of optics and photonics. As a service to students, recent graduates, and prospective employers, Photonics Spectra runs a profile of one of the LASER-TEC colleges each month.

Pasadena City College’s (PCC’s) curriculum in optical and laser technology (LaserTech) provides students with the applied skills required to work with precision optics, lasers, detectors, electronics, and nanotechnology. Local industrial partners and national laboratories have...

A new integrated design for electro-optic (EO) frequency combs expands the bandwidth of the comb and significantly reduces its microwave power requirements, compared to previous designs. The integrated EO frequency comb could benefit robotics, environmental sensing, spectroscopy, astronomy, and other fields that require precise, efficient measurement of light.

An international team comprising researchers from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Colorado School of Mines, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led by professor Tobias J. Kippenberg, created the EO comb generator using an integrated triply resonant architecture. This architecture features three interacting fields — two optical...

Ortel, a Photonics Foundries enterprise, has successfully transferred its C-band continuous wave laser module platform to the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre, a pure-play III-V semiconductor wafer foundry. The transfer assures uninterrupted wafer supply and a smooth transition to markets including lidar, fiber optic sensing, and test and measurement, the company said. Initial customer samples of the laser will be available in February, with fully qualified production device availability expected in Q2 2025.

IOTA chair Mark Deakes. Courtesy of IOTA. HEXHAM, England — International trade body for optics-based anti-counterfeiting technologies the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA) has rebranded as the...

SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, recognized the top innovations in new optics and photonics products at the 2025 Prism Awards held at Photonics West on Jan. 29. The gala event marked the Prism Awards’ 17th anniversary.

The annual ceremony honored a range of established and emerging companies applying groundbreaking and creative solutions to critical problems in areas such as augmented and virtual reality, sensors, lasers, quantum technology, and biomedical optics solutions. In addition, the Society recognized its second SPIE Catalyst Award recipient, honoring a for-profit company for a specific social or environmentally focused program that has had significant positive impact, either within their...

A team at Aalto University combined miniaturized hardware with intelligent algorithms to create a microscopic spectral sensor that can accurately identify a myriad of materials. The work of the researchers could make it possible for industries like health care, food safety, and transportation to implement miniaturized spectroscopy, using everyday devices, for various applications.

A high-performance, miniaturized spectral sensor that fits inside a smartphone or wearable device could be used, for example, to monitor changes in an individual’s health, detect counterfeit drugs, or identify spoiled food. Autonomous vehicles could use the sensor for accurate, cost-effective object identification.

Spectral sensing, which...

Planet Labs, a provider of remote sensing satellites, signed a multi-year $230 million agreement to expand its partnership with a long-standing Asia-Pacific commercial partner. According to Planet CEO and co-founder Will Marshall, the contract is the company’s largest to date.

Per the agreement, Planet will build and deliver a constellation of new Pelican high-resolution satellites, securing certain capacity on the satellites for the partner, in addition to providing operational services. Planet will leverage the increased capacity of the expanded fleet to serve its own government and commercial customers around the world.
Rendering of a Planet Labs Pelican satellite. Courtesy of Planet Labs.
Pelican, Planet’s next...

Photonic computing company iPronics has raised €20 million ($20.8 million) in a series A funding round. The funds will help accelerate deployment of the company’s Optical Networking Engine (ONE) in AI data centers, enabling fast, scalable, and high-bandwidth communication for energy-efficient AI.
iPronics’ Optical Networking Engine (ONE) is designed to enable artificial intelligence applications. Courtesy of iPronics.
iPronics’ ONE technology offers an optically switched fabric for AI architectures, enabling at-will topology adaptation and extending programmability to physical layer connections. According to the company it provides 1000× faster reconfiguration compared to other optic based approaches,...

During a ceremony yesterday at SPIE Photonics West, Max-IR Labs was named as the winner of the $10,000 top prize at the 15th annual SPIE Startup Challenge. The company’s AquaCarbon Monitor is set to facilitate carbon credits with precise CO2 monitoring in water systems.
(From left) Jenoptik’s Ralf Kuschnereit, Max-IR Lab's Trey Daunis, and 2025 SPIE President Peter de Groot. Courtesy of SPIE.
Photosynthetic B.V. and their Volumetric Micro-Lithography product, which enables the rapid production of complex 3D devices with submicron features, received $5000 for second place. OptiCardio came in third, winning $2500 with their spectroscopy-enabled device for real-time guidance to reduce the recurrence rate of ablation...

Quantum computing company Alice & Bob have raised €100 million ($104 million) in a Series B funding round. The funds will serve to accelerate the company’s development of a scalable fault-tolerant quantum computer, targeted for 2030.
Alice & Bob founders Théau Peronnin (left) and Raphael Lescanne. Courtesy of Alice & Bob.
Alice & Bob will use the funding to enhance the performance of its system, improve error correction, and create its first error-corrected logical qubit. Nearly half of the funds will be used to finance the ongoing construction of a state-of-the-art lab and production facility, and additional funds will be used to further expand the team, which has doubled in the past year, the...

Bridger Photonics, an aerial methane detection company, has appointed Ben Little as CEO, replacing company founder Pete Roos, who will assume the role of chief innovation officer. Little has previous leadership experience in data, software, and platform development. He currently serves as CEO of Bloomfire. The leadership transition is set to take effect Feb. 18.

Pete Roos (left) and Ben Little. Courtesy of Bridger Photonics. SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, France — Robotics developer Exail has added Bruno Desruelle as CEO of its photonics business line. He previously served as vice president of Exail’s photonics line and also as managing director of its quantum sensors division. Desruelle is the founder and former CEO of Muquans...

Medical technology company Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) and laboratory automation solutions developer Biosero have established a collaboration agreement to facilitate robotic integration with BD flow cytometry instruments to accelerate drug discovery and development. The first systems are expected to be available for research use later this year.

The companies intend to develop new capabilities within BD's flow cytometer instrument software to be compatible with Biosero’s Green Button Go software, which will jointly support biopharmaceutical and contract research organizations with their custom research needs and enable easy integration with robotic arms.

Traditionally, several steps in a lab’s flow cytometry...

The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia is setting up what is being called “the first node for the quantum internet of the future.” The system was delivered by the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology (Fraunhofer ILT) who co-developed it with the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). The system will be tested and further developed, with the first regional connections expected to be made between Aachen, where it currently resides, and Jülich and Bonn.

The international team, led by QuTech in Delft, the Netherlands, is developing metropolitan scale quantum networks to provide access to quantum computers for users from industry and research, to connect quantum computer platforms, and to...

Various disciplines use high resolution imaging to enhance and ultimately improve the information that a user can obtain from a scene. At the component level, high resolution image guides, such as glass nano waveguides based on Transverse Anderson Localization (TAL), can further augment the effect that high resolution imaging offers.


Transverse Anderson Localization Optical Fiber (TALOF)-based nano waveguides for high resolution imaging. Courtesy of SCHOTT.

The benefits apply to numerous applications. In minimally invasive health procedures, for example, endoscopes and other surgical tools capture sharper, clearer images of internal structures. This improves the prospects for clinicians to detect early-stage diseases, such...

Quintessent Inc., a developer of quantum dot laser technology and heterogeneous silicon photonics, and IQE plc, a global supplier of advanced epitaxial wafer products and services, have partnered to establish a large-scale quantum dot laser and semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) epitaxial wafer supply chain. This collaboration, supported by purchase order commitments from Quintessent, will see IQE deliver production quantities of epitaxial wafers to Quintessent throughout 2025.

The supply of high-quality, high-volume quantum dot epitaxial wafers for laser sources and SOAs have been limited until recent advances were made by Quintessent and IQE. Those milestones have been in the works for the past decade, including research that...