photonics

Courtesy of iStock.com/kynny.
The relentless expansion of data communication, propelled by advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning workloads, as well as cloud computing, cloud storage, AR/VR, video on demand, 5G technology, the Internet of Things, and autonomous vehicles, demands a substantial increase in bandwidth. Hyperscale data centers are under continuous pressure to enhance and augment their network capacity. This is achieved through hardware upgrades, including more advanced switches, routers, and servers, which offer higher bandwidth via increased port speeds and higher port counts relative to previous generations.

In parallel, the optical interconnects that link these network devices must also...

To produce faux marble kitchen countertops, a manufacturer places a piece of solarized polypropylene — a thermoplastic polymer material — on top of white stone. To ensure that a successful bond is created, the stone must contact the nonsolarized side of the polypropylene.

The challenge: The visible eye cannot differentiate which side is which.


Infrared and ultraviolet imaging are extending beyond the biomedical and chemical settings in which they are strongly established. Courtesy of www.iStock.com/Pongchart.
To make this distinction, the manufacturer in a recent use case used Shimadzu Scientific Instruments’ infrared microscopy solution to determine where oxidation had occurred. Oxidation is an indication...

Courtesy of Amplitude Laser.
Laser microprocessing has been on the rise for decades. While technological roadblocks have influenced this progression, a close look at these roadblocks reveals that each has advanced to maturity. Productivity is key, and laser sources, scanners, and systems technology have made extensive progress; they are already used in large-scale applications, and much more growth is expected.

Laser sources and scanners

In the 1990s, scientists found that laser pulses in the pico- and femtosecond regime could be used to cut and drill almost any material with significantly reduced heat-affected zones and smoother walls compared with nanosecond pulses. Evidently, these ultrashort pulses (USPs) were well suited...

Mines are inherently challenging places to work, but even within such an environment, certain tasks are considered particularly risky. In the aftermath of a blasting operation, for example, miners must assess the resulting opening in the rock and determine whether valuable ore can be recovered or whether additional excavation is needed.

The traditional method that miners have used to perform these critical functions puts them in a precarious position. “They were actually sticking a laser scanner on a pole into these cavities,” said Brandon Duick, CTO at Exyn Technologies. “It’s not the safest thing to have engineers or surveyors have to get that close to the space where there could potentially still be falling...

The transition of micro-optics from an emerging field into a cornerstone of modern optical systems offers considerable evidence in support of the commercial potential of light manipulated at microscopic scales. And, as the micro-optics technology space burgeons, an evolution is underway in the protocols spanning metrology, manufacturing, and applications. Today, biomedical devices, lidar, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and telecommunications are among the sectors that are benefiting from breakthroughs in resolution, miniaturization, and functionality.


Courtesy of EV Group.
As it relates to broadening the commercial prospects for micro-optics, continued success depends heavily on sustaining the evolution of these...

The rapid growth of advanced and intelligent technologies that power our daily lives — including hyperscale data centers, artificial intelligence, and smarter consumer electronic devices — is fueling the demand for more computing power and requiring even more powerful semiconductor chips. Driven by the need to support the rate at which this exponential technological growth is occurring, industry is adopting new photolithography tools that can print chips faster and with smaller features.

Amid semiconductor manufacturers aiming to realize higher throughputs and extend the lifetime of deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems, the use of an optimal material, as determined by the application, can in turn be a key determinant...

When Edvard Munch completed his famed painting “The Scream” in 1893, he probably didn’t expect it to have such a profound and lasting effect on the cultural zeitgeist. Just as likely, he probably never imagined that it would at one point hold the record for the most expensive work ever sold at auction; the painting fetched a cool $120 million back in 2012.

Thankfully, contemporary museum goers can see this expression of Munch’s personal anxieties, as access to the painting is still attainable for the rest of us plebians who can’t afford to casually drop millions of dollars on a canvas. The painting is on public display at the National Museum of Oslo, Norway.

For those who don’t have the means...

If you look at the photonics landscape, you will see some well-known hotspots: There is of course Jena (my hometown) in Germany; Rochester, N.Y., and Tucson, Ariz., in the U.S.; and Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Vilnius, the capital of the Baltic state Lithuania, might not be the first place that you think of, but it’s definitely up there, too.

Lithuania is a small country, roughly twice the size of the state of Maryland, with a population of 2.9 million. Its status as a photonics hotbed, especially in ultrashort-pulse laser technology, owes to the academics and the many reputable brands that headquarter in Vilnius. Light Conversion, Standa, EKSMA Optics, and EKSPLA are among the firms that have been established in Vilnius...

January issues of Photonics Spectra offer more; in addition to more material, it is our hope that the content that features in our annual “Trends” edition encourages readers to ponder what they’ve read even after finishing an article. More content, to empower our readership to be more actively informed on major themes in and for our industry, is the ultimate reward for members of our staff who have made this issue possible.

This idea of more — and of more information — is especially topical right now. Here in the U.S., the vast and considerable changes that each new year promises feel particularly close as we greet 2025. Undoubtedly, the line that separates politics and society has been blurred in the...

Opticore, a photonic computing company, has raised $5 million in a seed funding round led by Sagax Capital and Jetha Global. The company is developing optical processing units that can perform the same computational tasks as GPUs but using light and waveguides instead of electrical components, allowing computation at multiple orders of magnitude lower energy costs and higher clock speeds.

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Next-generation sensing and perception systems developer Aeva has expanded its collaboration with Torc, an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck, to advance the development of a new safety architecture for autonomous truck applications. Under the expanded collaboration, the companies will work toward Level 4 autonomous...

Semiconductor technology company Aeluma has become a full industry member of the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics). Aeluma has collaborated with AIM Photonics for more than two years as part of an ongoing government-directed project (GDP) to develop the heterogeneous integration of compound semiconductor devices on silicon.

One of nine Manufacturing Innovation Institutes established by the U.S. Department of Defense, AIM Photonics’ mission is to advance integrated photonic circuit manufacturing technology development in the U.S. The institute's prototyping services include silicon photonics multiproject wafer services to shorten design time, improve manufacturing efficiency, and reduce...

Research led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has yielded a deep ultraviolet (DUV) microLED display array for lithography machines. The enhanced-efficiency DUV microLED — the world’s first, according to the researchers — has showcased the viability of a lower cost maskless photolithography through the provision of adequate light output power density, enabling exposure of photoresist films in a shorter time.

A lithography machine is crucial equipment for semiconductor manufacturing, applying short-wavelength ultraviolet light to make integrated circuit chips with various layouts. However, traditional mercury lamps and DUV LED light sources have shortcomings such as large device size, low...

Researchers have developed a laser-based artificial neuron that fully emulates the functions, dynamics, and information processing of a biological graded neuron. With a signal processing speed of 10 GBaud — a billion times faster than its biological counterparts — the new laser graded neuron could lead to breakthroughs in fields like artificial intelligence and other types of advanced computing.

The body contains various types of nerve cells, including graded neurons that encode information through continuous changes in membrane potential, allowing subtle and precise signal processing. In contrast, biological spiking neurons transmit information using all-or-none action potentials, creating a more binary form of...

Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and led by Fraunhofer IAF, the IFE Targetry HUB consortium has begun research into the target component of laser-based inertial confinement fusion.

The consortium is comprised of 15 members across research and industry. Collaborators will contribute their expertise in basic, applied, and industrial research to the three-year project plan, which aims to jointly investigate suitable materials and processes for the functional and cost-efficient scalable production and characterization of targets for laser-based inertial confinement fusion.
Members of the IFE Targetry HUB project consortium met on Dec. 20, 2024 at the Technical University of Darmstadt to discuss a course...

Polar Light Technologies has reported the development of 625-nm red light based on the company's non-etching bottom-up fabrication concept. According to the company, the successful demonstration marks its achievement of red, green, and blue pyramidal micro-LEDs using the same material compound.

The advance lays the foundation for spatial computing and next-generation monolithic RGB display, Polar Light said.

Though blue and green micro-LEDs are widely available on the commercial market, achieving a red color has been difficult due to challenges in the necessary material properties. There are several workarounds or alternatives for reaching a red color that each come with some compromises, in terms of efficiency,...

The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP (Fraunhofer IAP) and Notion Systems GmbH, a manufacturer of inkjet equipment for deliverables including printed electronics, 3D printing, and printed circuit boards, have established a strategic partnership to further develop electrohydrodynamic printing for display technologies and new applications.
An electrohydrodynamic printing system prints with high resolution on conductive glass. Courtesy of Fraunhofer IAP. Per the collaboration, the partners are targeting technologies that support production of high-precision and functional materials. Initial joint projects will focus on the development of new printing materials and the optimization of printing processes in the field of...

Particularly regarding brightness and color reproducibility, laser displays have the potential to overcome the intrinsic limitations of conventional light-emitting devices, such as OLEDs and liquid crystals. However, to be effectively used as displays, the components must be miniaturized beyond current levels and laid out in high density and large quantities.

Researchers at the University of Tsukuba have developed a method for rapidly creating laser light sources in large quantities using an inkjet printer that ejects laser-emitting droplets. By applying an electric field to these droplets, the researchers demonstrated that switching the emission of light on and off is possible. Furthermore, they successfully created a compact laser...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will fund three Microelectronics Science Research Centers with $179 million over four years. The three centers, authorized by the Micro Act passed in the CHIPS and Science Act, will perform basic research in microelectronics materials, device and system design, and manufacturing science to transform future microelectronics technologies. The centers are formed as networks of projects; 16 in total led out of 10 national laboratories were selected by competitive peer review.

The Microelectronics Energy Efficiency Research Center for Advanced Technologies (MEERCAT) will advance integrated innovations across materials, devices, information-carrying modalities, and systems’ architectures. Focusing...

Zebra Technologies will acquire Photoneo, a developer and manufacturer of 3D machine vision solutions. The acquisition will expand Zebra’s portfolio and strengthen its position as a leader in the 3D segment of the machine vision market, combining Photoneo’s 3D sensors with Zebra’s capabilities in AI-powered imaging, inspection software, and autonomous data capture.

Financial terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2025.

Bratislava, Slovakia-based Photoneo is well known for its parallel structured light technology; the company's intelligent sensors are widely used in vision-guided robotics, for applications including bin-picking and...

An adaptation of OCT put into use at Northwestern University, visible OCT (vis-OCT), will be a key component in an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H)-funded project that aims to conduct successful eye transplants in the next several years. The technology will be used to examine the structural integrity of eyes in donors, such as the health of retinal layers and the flow of blood as well as monitoring their continued viability throughout the process.

This work will be supported by over $50 million in ARPA-H funds to multiple institutions, earmarked for viability, imaging, surgical, immunomodulation, ocular preservation, and neuroregeneration strategies within the Transplantation of Human Eye Allografts (THEA)...