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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has opened the Quantum Diamond Lab at its Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The lab will be devoted to studying and refining the processes involved in using plasma to create diamond material for quantum information science applications. The Quantum Diamond Lab contains chemical vapor deposition machines which use plasma to create diamond material infused with other elements, allowing scientists to create qubits for quantum computing.

(From left) PPPL senior strategic advisor Emily Carter, PPPL CEO Tim Meyer, PPPL managing principal research physicist Alastair Stacey, and director for the office of the vice president for PPPL Brandon Thorne. Courtesy of PPPL. LEUVEN, Belgium —...

Mammalian brains are known to be comprised of densely interconnected neurons, but a remaining mystery in neuroscience is how tools which capture relatively few components of brain activity have enabled scientists to predict behavior in mice.

To better capture and understand neural activity in mice, professor Alipasha Vaziri and his team at The Rockefeller University used large-scale recordings and light-beads microscopy (LBM), a volumetric, two-photon imaging technique developed by the Vaziri lab in 2021. LBM increases imaging speed by eliminating the “dead-time” between sequential laser pulses, when no neuroactivity is recorded, and by removing the need for scanning.

LBM breaks one laser pulse into 30 sub-pulses...

Fusion energy technology developer Tokamak Energy is working on laser measurement technology crucial to controlling the extreme conditions inside future fusion power plants. The company is testing a laser-based dispersion interferometer system at its Oxford, England, headquarters and expects install the system on its ST40 fusion machine later this year.

Tokamak Energy’s approach to fusion employs a tokamak, a device that uses a magnetic field to confine and control a plasma. The device features a spherical design, pioneered by company co-founder Alan Sykes in the 1980s, that is designed to improve efficiency, plasma stability, and cost-effectiveness.
Tokamak Energy is testing a laser-based dispersion interferometer system to...

A microcomb developed by researchers at Stanford University could provide the basis for wide-spread adoption in everyday electronics. The frequency comb device is small, energy-efficient, and highly accurate. With further development, the team envisions applications in handheld medical diagnostic devices and widespread greenhouse gas monitoring sensors.

Since their development, frequency combs have been utilized for high-precision measurement applications, such as timekeeping and spectroscopy. However, the technology has required bulky, expensive, and power-hungry equipment, which has limited their use to laboratory settings.

The researchers found a workaround for these issues by integrating two different approaches for...

The Institute for Molecular Science (IMS), a Japanese inter-university research institute, is working with industrial partners to accelerate the development of neutral atom quantum computing based on research work led by Kenji Ohmori. IMS plans to launch a startup company by the end of its FY2024 and begin development of neutral atom quantum computers.
Experimental setup for the cold atom (neutral atom) quantum computer developed by the Kenji Ohmori group at the Institute for Molecular Science. Courtesy of Takafumi Tomita. Ohmori’s group uses optical tweezers and microscope technologies to control a large number of high-quality qubits on a flat surface, as well as ultrafast two-qubit gates that use an ultrafast laser to create a...

On March 8, 2024, Longview Fusion Energy Systems said that it has enlisted engineering and construction firm Fluor to design a laser fusion power plant — a step toward the company's stated goal of delivering power to the grid via its fusion pilot plant by the early 2030s. The California-based Longview aims to use the same laser-based fusion approach championed at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

According to Longview, its fusion power plants (1000-1600 MW) will be able to provide enough power to cover the needs of a small city when operating at full capacity, or provide process heat or power to drive industrial production of the materials needed for operational necessities...

Optica has named 20 recipients of of its 2024 awards and medals. The awards celebrate leaders in the field of photonics who are making technical, research, education, business, leadership, and service accomplishments.

“Congratulations to the 2024 Optica award and medal recipients, whose leadership, vision, and extraordinary contributions are advancing our field to new heights,” said Gerd Leuchs, Optica's 2024 President.

For a complete list of the winners, visit www.optica.org/about/newsroom/news_releases/2024/march/optica_names_20_recipients_of_2024_awards_and_medals/.

Collaborating researchers from Hong Kong, China, and Germany have developed a quantum sensing technology that encodes changes in fluorescence intensity into spikes that occur during optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) measurements. The image capture technology uses a neuromorphic vision sensor designed to mimic the human vision system.

According to the researchers, the sensing mechanism is more efficient than traditional methods, which, they said, are commonly limited in terms of frame rate and dynamic range, among other aspects. The proposed system delivers highly compressed data volumes and reduced latency by enabling enhanced sensitivity and temporal resolution — all using an off-the-shelf event camera.

An...

Researchers in Germany have developed a way to control and manipulate optical signals by embedding a liquid crystal layer into waveguides created with direct laser writing. The work could lead to devices that enable electro-optical control of polarization. Such devices could open possibilities for chip-based devices and complex photonic circuits based on femtosecond-written waveguides.

According to Alessandro Alberucci, researcher from Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, the advance could be beneficial for other data-intensive applications in and beyond the data center. Alberucci added that the technology could also find application in the experimental realization of dense optical neural networks.

Liquid crystal-enabled...

Holography technology can restore the complete light field information of the recorded object, which has important applications in fields like biological microscopic imaging and optical micromanipulation. One important frontier in holography is the reconstruction of realistic 3D scenes. However, the development and application of holographic technology have been hindered by the huge amount of data of the 3D scenes and the laser coherence, which leads to the slow capturing speed of the real 3D scenes and the serious speckle noise of the holographic reproduced image.

A team of researchers has collaborated to develop a holographic camera based on liquid lens technology, capable of recording high-quality holograms of real 3D scenes in a...

The Photonics Challenge, an annual competition sponsored by the Graduate University School for the Creation of New Photonics Industries, has concluded with the selection of four out of nine finalist companies from Japan to win its top prizes based upon their proposed business plans. Laser manufacturer HOLODESIGN Inc. won the Best Business Award which came with a prize of ¥1 million ($6,754), while Hamamatsu Pulse Co. Ltd., Pi Photonics, Inc., and eZov International were awarded the Grand Prize for Best Challenge, Shizuoka SME Excellence Award, and Observer Award, respectively.

The Photonics Challenge judging committee selected HOLODESIGN Inc. as its Best Business Award recipient. Courtesy of Central Japan Startup Ecosystem...

The Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition (OFC), returning to the San Diego Convention Center March 24 to 28, will feature a hybrid format that allows attendees to see both in-person and virtual talks. Those who attend in-person will be able to explore an event hosting more than 13,000 participants from more than 70 countries and featuring more than 540 companies on the exhibition floor.

The live event’s multitude of displays and highlights will revolve around three exhibition hall theaters showcasing expert presentations on hot topics such as PICs, cloud and edge computing, and how mobile optics will be used in 6G.

Among the highlights is a plenary session on March 26 that will feature three industry...

VIAVI Solutions has entered into an agreement to acquire London-based test and measurement company Spirent for £1 billion ($1.3 billion). The acquisition expands VIAVI’s portfolio by providing complementary and synergistic products for networking and 5G and 6G infrastructure, as well as diversification into areas like cloud service, enterprise/IT networks, 5G private networks, 6G+, and position, navigation, and timing.

The acquisition is expected to close during the second half of 2024.

Spirent is a provider of products, services, and managed solutions for test assurance and automation of technologies including 5G, software-defined wide area networks, cloud, and autonomous vehicles. The company’s international...

A material coating, whose light refraction properties can be precisely switched between different states, has been developed by an interdisciplinary research team from the Chemistry and Physics departments at the University of Jena. The team, led by professors Felix Schacher and Isabelle Staude, combined light-reactive polymers with metasurfaces. The work has led to the creation of new optical components that could see use in signal processing.

As light hits this photo-tunable polymer metasurface, properties like its refractive index are changed, depending on the incident light’s wavelength. Courtesy of Jens Meyer/University of Jena. Optical metasurfaces are nanostructured thin layers whose characteristic structural sizes are...

Researchers have developed an all-light communication network that enables seamless connectivity across space, air and underwater environments. The new network design combines different types of light sources to ensure connectivity across environments.

“In today’s world, data transmission is critical for communication, navigation, emergency response, research and commercial activities,” said research team leader Yongjin Wang from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications and Suzhou Lighting Chip Monolithic Optoelectronics Technology Co. Ltd. “This new wireless network enables uninterrupted connectivity across environments, facilitating two-way real-time data transmission between the network nodes that...

Jenoptik has appointed Jakob Habermann as deputy chairman of its supervisory board, replacing Stefan Schaumburg. Habermann had already been elected to replace Schaumburg in the election of employee representatives to the supervisory board in 2022. Habermann has been a member of the supervisory board since Jan. 1 and holds positions in the investment, personnel, and mediation committees. Habermann currently serves as trade union secretary at the German IG Metall trade union’s central district management, a position he has held since 2014.

Jakob Habermann. Courtesy of Jenoptik. SAN JOSE, Calif. — Optical and photonic products developer Lumentum Holdings has appointed Jae Kim as senior vice president, general counsel, and...

Intel has launched Altera, a standalone field gate array (FPGA) company. Intel acquired Altera, a producer of FPGAs, in 2015. The company has been operating as Intel’s Programmable Solutions Group (PSG). Intel had indicated its intent to establish a standalone company for the group in October 2023.

Altera's FPGA AI Suite and OpenVINO platforms utilize AI to generate optimized intellectual property based on standard frameworks like TensorFlow and Pytorch, while its FPGAs are designed to integrate critical AI inferencing capabilities and better intercept evolving standards like PCI Express, CXL, and 6G wireless.

Sandra Rivera, Intel’s executive vice president and CEO of the PSG, also serves as Altera’s CEO. Intel...

America’s enthrallment with corn can crop up in strange ways. Recall the internet-enabled rise to fame of Tariq Day, also known as “The Corn Kid,” in 2022. Day’s love of corn, which, thanks to modern technology, he reiterated time and time again on the screens of our smart devices, granted him luminary status in the world of corn.

There is, perhaps, a rational explanation for this irrational exuberance.

As one of the U.S.’ leading agricultural contributions, corn fields currently occupy 80 million acres, or 3% of the land within our nation’s borders. Domestically, corn growth contributed $164.7 billion to the U.S. economy in 2021. On a global scale, the U.S. accounts for ~30% of the...

The cloud. It evokes an ethereal, weightless environment in which problems get whisked away by a breeze.

In reality, the cloud consists of massive industrial buildings containing millions of dollars’ worth of equipment spread over thousands and, increasingly, millions of square feet. In Arizona, some communities are complaining that cloud data centers are draining their aquifers and consuming far more water than expected. In the U.K. and Ireland, the power requirements of data centers are crimping needed housing development. Even in regions such as northern Virginia where the local economies are tightly bound to data centers, conflicts between residents and the cloud are emerging.

With the rise of AI, these conflicts will...

Microelectronics and sensors, particularly lidar sensors, play a pivotal role in the realm of autonomous driving and self-driving cars. The markets for these technologies exhibit substantial potential, prompting predictions that the automotive lidar market will double in size within the next two years.

Safety is a paramount concern in the automotive sector and is necessitating the deployment of high-value and high-performance lidar systems for advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous vehicles. The existing challenges to this end revolve around the considerable size, weight, and power consumption of lidar sensor devices. Given these constraints within a vehicle platform, there is a pressing need for further miniaturization of...