“Every photon counts”—that’s the message that Dr. Jose Pozo, CTO of the European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC), asked the audience to keep in mind as he kicked off his must-see keynote entitled, “Top 7 Trends in Photonics 2021: From Industrial Manufacturing to Quantum Computing” at the PhotonicsNXT Summer Summit held June 23–24th, 2021.
“The future of optical systems is that we can’t lose even a single photon because light costs money,” Pozo explained, noting that the automotive sector has seen a huge increase in interest for lidar technologies. His presentation discussed how the industry has experienced a paradigm shift in the way light is detected through the use of single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), a technology whose development has been well documented within the pages of Laser Focus World since at least 2005.
According to Pozo, the lidar industry has been inundated with a flood of new technologies such as advances in laser sources, scanning systems, and integration of lidar components with micro-optics for automotive-rated environments. Though detector optimization remains a key challenge, Pozo claims that SPADs will enable the next generation of integrated lidar solutions with the form factor and price that the automotive industry needs, concluding that lidar applications will drive the future of silicon photonics, SPAD sensors, gallium arsenide-based sensors, and photonic integrated circuit packaging.
Whether or not you agree, I’m pleased to invite you to continue the conversation with us on October 28, 2021, at the PhotonicsNXT Fall Summit, where Yole Développement (Lyon, France) will present the keynote presentation, “How LiDAR is becoming a key sensor for automated driving,” based on their 2021 lidar report. I'd love to have you join us.
