2026 World Quantum Cannes Festival makes its debut

You haven’t missed it yet—on Nov. 17-18, 2026, the quantum community will gather in Cannes, France to be immersed in all aspects of quantum technologies, network, and enjoy the...

Optics

Standardizing CPO won't matter if the substrate supply chain can’t keep up

Optics

PODCAST: Meet Andrew Strikwerda, COMSOL

Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast

Conventional CMOS automotive camera with in-camera HDR shows significant motion blur on a road sign.

Detectors & Imaging

Single-photon avalanche diode arrays: An avalanche of photon data for sharper imaging

Inside of an older Spectra-Physics laser, a Triton, which has a doubling crystal, the source of the green light. It also has a tripling crystal for UV light.

Lasers & Sources

After 40 years of the ‘green problem,’ the quiet laser explains itself

Resources

Photonics Hot List: October 23, 2026

FIGURE 1. Transmitted power at the target as a function of depth in tissue for a 780-nm CW diode laser (250 mW), measured in vivo through human skin and muscle for four treated-zone diameters (Ø 40, 20, 10, and 2 mm), illustrating the near-exponential attenuation of laser energy with penetration depth (unpublished data).

Bio&Life Sciences

780-nm photobiomodulation advances peripheral nerve repair toward a device-ready clinical platform

Voices of the Industry

Quantum

Is quantum computing playing out like mobile phones, circa 1995?

Quantum computing isn’t waiting to become useful—its practical hybrid phase is already underway.

Siegfried Glenzer and Arianna Gleason in front of the chamber for Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) instrument at LCLS. Credit: Jacqueline Ramseyer Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Lasers & Sources

The race for laser-driven fusion energy heats up

Is putting carbon-free laser-driven fusion energy on the grid by the 2030s possible?

Learning Resources

Sponsored

Webinars

From Microtoroids to Single Molecules: Modeling-Enabled Ultrasensitive Optical Sensing

Explore how optical modeling and microtoroid WGM resonators enable ultrasensitive detection of molecules, biomarkers, and gases. Gain new photonics insights. Register today!

Nov. 11, 2026

Sponsored

Advanced Electric Discharge Modeling for Reliable Insulation Design

Cut costly physical testing. Learn how to simulate complex discharge phenomena and optimize high-voltage insulation design with COMSOL.

Oct. 2, 2026

Sponsored

11 Common Breadboarding Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

From optics and autofocus to illumination and packaging, explore 11 common breadboarding mistakes and the expert guidance that can help accelerate development and improve system...

Oct. 1, 2026

Sponsored

Cancer Vision Goggles: Transforming Precision Oncologic Surgery

Discover how Cancer Vision Goggles bring real-time, hands-free NIR fluorescence imaging directly into the surgeon’s field of view, offering an innovative way to visualize tumor...

Oct. 1, 2026

Podcast

Lasers/Sources

Veeco’s GEN2000 molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system.

Lasers & Sources

Quantum dot lasers may unlock next era of AI optical interconnects

A misconception about quantum dot lasers (QDLs) is they’re poised to replace indium phosphide (InP) technology. But InP externally modulated lasers (EMLs) will continue serving...

Oct. 21, 2026

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Sponsored

Choosing the right gain fiber for your laser or amplifier

As a long-standing partner to equipment manufacturers, Exail leverages decades of industrial expertise to help engineers select an active fiber with properties matching the specific...

Oct. 15, 2026

Building a beam profiler in-house with hardware and basic software can produce usable results under controlled conditions, but delivering accurate, repeatable, and traceable measurements over time requires far more.

Test & Measurement

Buy vs. build a laser beam analysis solution: 11 considerations

Should you buy or build a laser beam analyzer? Navigate the hidden complexity behind this question by exploring 11 key considerations.

Oct. 14, 2026

Resources

Don't miss Laser Focus World’s PhotonicsNXT 2026 virtual event!

PhotonicsNXT brings the optics, photonics, and quantum community together for a 2-day series of educational presentations covering a range of advances, innovations, and applications...

Oct. 13, 2026

Optics

Optics

PODCAST: Formula E on pace at COMSOL Conference 2026

Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast

This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features Dan Cherowbrier, CTO of Formula E, who discusses the growing role of optics in auto racing.

Oct. 20, 2026

FIGURE 1. An echelle spectrograph disperses input light into multiple overlapping orders using a steep-blazed grating. A grism separates these orders perpendicularly and produces a 2D array of parallel spectra that are focused onto a CCD detector.

Optics

Advanced echelle gratings enable high-precision exoplanet detection

Spectroscopic measurements of radial velocity are an important tool for exoplanet hunting, and high-resolution gratings are a key enabling technology.

Oct. 9, 2026

Optics

From pixels to optical links: MicroLEDs pivot to copackaged optics

A surge of interest in micro-light-emitting diode (microLED) copackaged optics (CPO) solutions reflects several advantages but shouldn’t overshadow the technological challenges...

Oct. 8, 2026

Henri B. Kagan (left) and Kenso Soai (right), winners of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Optics

Discovery of ‘how and why’ homochirality emerges receives 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Congratulations to Henri B. Kagan, a professor emeritus at the then Université Paris-Sud in France, and Kenso Soai, a professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Science in Japan...

Oct. 7, 2026

Quantum

Executive Forum

PODCAST | Expert Insights: Photonics & Quantum Computing

Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast

This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast covers the growing alliance between quantum computing and classical photonics.

Oct. 13, 2026

Optics

Tailor-made, large nonlinearities within nanophotonic devices?

Codesign of material properties and electromagnetic responses opens the door to higher-efficiency nanophotonic devices within smaller footprints.

Oct. 1, 2026

Quantum

Building quantum computers from the qubit up

Nord Quantique embeds error correction directly into its hardware via superconducting bosonic codes for a 1:1 logical-to-physical qubit ratio.

Sept. 7, 2026

Quantum

Diamond quantum emitter decoupled from vibrations may be a gamechanger

A newly discovered type of diamond color center has a desirable quirk: It couples to a single, stable local vibration that shows potential to be controlled.

Sept. 1, 2026

Test/Measurement

FIGURE 1. Hyperspectral imaging system operating in a field.

Detectors & Imaging

Optical imaging and spectroscopy enhance precision agriculture

Photonics provides new ways to measure crop condition, assess food quality, and control plant growth.

Oct. 13, 2026

2026 Nobel Prize in Physics winner Francis Halzen.

Detectors & Imaging

2026 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen for IceCube Neutrino Observatory

Congratulations to Francis Halzen, a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his “decisive contributions to...

Oct. 6, 2026

Andrea Arduin (left) and Professor Ole Bang, who heads the Fiber Sensors and Supercontinuum Group at DTU Electro, in the lab.

Lasers & Sources

‘Cooked’ fiber doubles range of ultralow-noise supercontinuum lasers

After heating an optical fiber for nearly an hour, researchers completely changed its dispersion within a small section and ended up with a supercontinuum that covers a wide range...

Sept. 30, 2026

Bio&Life Sciences

PODCAST: Meet Eric Diebold, Waters Biosciences

Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast

This episode of Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast features Eric Diebold, VP and general manager for Instrumentation, Software, and Informatics at Waters Biosciences.

Sept. 29, 2026

Detectors/Imaging

FIGURE 1. The lensless gigapixel video camera. Left: A laser diode in the base illuminates the sample by way of a fold mirror, and the coded sensor (inset) records the diffracted light without any lens. Right: Six moments from a gigapixel video of a melting snowflake. Color is optical phase wrapped over 2π, so each fringe is a contour of equal optical thickness; the shifting background tracks the meltwater film.

Detectors & Imaging

A lensless chip films gigapixel video

By coding light at the sensor and learning the correlations in a moving scene, a single lensless chip records gigapixel video at a throughput of 20.8 billion pixels per second...

Oct. 19, 2026

UC Riverside and LIGO Laboratory researchers move a 40-kg LIGO mirror into position to test a prototype FROSTI wavefront actuator in vacuum.

Detectors & Imaging

Wide-aperture wavefront sensing from thermal imaging

Complete internal thermal state and full-aperture wavefront errors of a large optic can be accurately reconstructed using front-surface thermal imaging.

Sept. 29, 2026

Schematic of the group’s multilayer photonic device that integrates a laser-programmable Sb2S3 phase-change layer and an UV-patterned humidity-responsive hydrogel. Optical information is encoded within the Sb2S3 layer via reversible amorphous-crystalline transitions using focused laser pulses.

Optics

Optical data storage approach dynamically conceals/reveals images

A three-layer photonic device combines phase-change materials with hydrogels to enable reversible, full-color image multiplexing for high-density optical storage devices via ambient...

Sept. 17, 2026

FIGURE 1. Legacy Eleven Parameter Image Intensifier Nomograph.4

Optics

The lost art of nomography is reborn through AI

AI-assisted nomography is a valuable tool for engineers because it helps show relationships in a different way, recognizes possibilities that might otherwise be overlooked, and...

Sept. 15, 2026