Detectors & Imaging

Commercializing light-based technologies

Aug. 6, 2014

The benefits of turning optical research into tools that help society are nowhere more obvious than in the life sciences, especially in applications of biomedicine and bioimaging.

Conard Holton

The benefits of turning optical research into tools that help society are nowhere more obvious than in the life sciences, especially in applications of biomedicine and bioimaging. Exploring this topic in his Business Forum column this month, Milton Chang interviews David Walt, a professor at Tufts University who applied fiber optics when co-founding DNA-sequencing star Illumina, and Quanterex, which has technology that counts molecules to do analysis of complex biological samples (see page 72).

Furthering the benefits of bioimaging, an article by our contributing editor Jeff Hecht describes how optical technologies such as metamaterials and techniques such as stimulated emission depletion can achieve super-resolution (subwavelength) microscopy—and reveal the previously unseeable (see page 33). Likewise, a World News story explains how researchers are using squeezed light to achieve sub-diffraction-limited imaging of biological structures (see page 18).

On this topic of development and commercialization, Laser Focus World and BioOptics World have created a new technical conference and vendor exhibition, Strategies in Biophotonics, which will be held September 9 to 11 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. I feel strongly that this event will help to foster the emergence of new tools and companies that use optics-based technologies for the life sciences. Our speaker list is a mix of researchers from industry and academia who have brought optics-based technology to the market, as well as investors, government regulators, consultants, and inventors from startup companies. The website, www.strategiesinbiophotonics.com, provides much more information—I think you will find it a valuable investment of your time.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention a benefit of optical research that is on the other extreme from the life sciences—our cover story from Halliburton (see page 27) on how an optical computing technology now measures critical fluids in the harsh environments of the oil and gas industry. It shows that we are just beginning to tap into the variety and scale of benefits that photonics enables.

About the Author

Conard Holton | Editor at Large

Conard Holton has 25 years of science and technology editing and writing experience. He was formerly a staff member and consultant for government agencies such as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and engineering companies such as Bechtel. He joined Laser Focus World in 1997 as senior editor, becoming editor in chief of WDM Solutions, which he founded in 1999. In 2003 he joined Vision Systems Design as editor in chief, while continuing as contributing editor at Laser Focus World. Conard became editor in chief of Laser Focus World in August 2011, a role in which he served through August 2018. He then served as Editor at Large for Laser Focus World and Co-Chair of the Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar from August 2018 through January 2022. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, with additional studies at the Colorado School of Mines and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.