In this episode: the U.K. successfully tests a laser weapon, new sensors offer enhanced night vision, and researchers build a chipscale laser powerhouse.
U.K.’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and Ministry of Defence aim to bring warfare further into the modern realm, after successfully demonstrating the effectiveness of an armored vehicle-mounted high-power laser energy weapon.
The shortcomings of conventional image sensor-based machine vision systems hinder their performance in challenging lighting conditions. But in work detailed in Nature Electronics, researchers from Hong Kong Polytechnic University have developed a photodiode-based solution.
A team of Stanford University researchers and engineers have brought the powerhouse that is a Ti:sapphire laser from bulky and complex to tiny and inexpensive. In a process involving a waveguide and a ring resonator, the new chipscale Ti:sapphire laser is already breaking ground.
Justine Murphy is the multimedia director for Endeavor Business Media's Digital Infrastructure Group. She is a multiple award-winning writer and editor with more 20 years of experience in newspaper publishing as well as public relations, marketing, and communications. For nearly 10 years, she has covered all facets of the optics and photonics industry as an editor, writer, web news anchor, and podcast host for an internationally reaching magazine publishing company. Her work has earned accolades from the New England Press Association as well as the SIIA/Jesse H. Neal Awards. She received a B.A. from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
