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  • Volume 59, Issue 11
  • Volume 59, Issue 11

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    Executive Forum

    Breathless: Time for big business to clear the air

    Oct. 17, 2023
    Despite research repeatedly highlighting the health risks of air pollution, action to reduce it has not kept up—but the scientific community can help change that.
    (Courtesy of MKS Newport)
    FIGURE 1. Preparing a blood sample prior to testing.
    Bio&Life Sciences

    Building precision, accuracy, and speed into the analytical instruments used in health and life science

    Oct. 16, 2023
    The strategic integration of custom-designed optical components can significantly improve the performance of these vital tools. Here are the critical factors to consider.
    FIGURE 1. OCT has allowed clinicians to better diagnose ophthalmic diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which causes blurred vision.
    Bio&Life Sciences

    Developing successful optical coherence tomography systems for ophthalmology and dermatology

    Oct. 13, 2023
    This overview of optical coherence tomography (OCT) recommends systems designers evaluate essential illumination source and optical component criteria when designing these noninvasive...
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    Commentary

    Making photonics more visible

    Oct. 11, 2023
    When the Nobel Prize recognizes researchers in photonics—in two categories in one year, no less—it’s more than a cause for celebration. It’s an opportunity to raise the field’...
    (Courtesy of JJ Coello-Bravo)
    FIGURE 1. Cooled lava becomes blocks, sometimes as large as houses.
    Test & Measurement

    Laser spectrometry method reveals the chemistry of volcanic magma

    Oct. 11, 2023
    Predicting and preparing for volcanic eruptions is highly desirable, and a new high-resolution analytical laser spectrometry approach could be just the way to do it.

    More content from Volume 59, Issue 11

    (Photo credit: LANL)
    FIGURE 1. Han Htoon in the lab.
    Lasers & Sources

    Chiral quantum light emitter generates single photons, controls chirality, to encode data

    Oct. 9, 2023
    A chiral quantum light emitter acts as a novel two-fer by generating a stream of single photons and also controlling their polarization state.
    (Photo credit: Jean Lachat/University of Chicago)
    Philippe Guyot-Sionnest (right) and Xingyu Shen in the laboratory at the Gordon Center for Integrative Sciences at the University of Chicago.
    Lasers & Sources

    Colloidal quantum dots generate infrared light

    Oct. 6, 2023
    A novel quantum dot approach to generate infrared light opens the door to mid-infrared lasers and cost-effective sensors.
    (Courtesy of Jinyang Liang, INRS)
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    Detectors & Imaging

    DRUM offers low-cost, ultrahigh-speed imaging

    Oct. 5, 2023
    An ultrahigh-speed camera based on diffraction-gated real-time ultrahigh-speed mapping (DRUM) boasts an imaging speed and spatial resolution akin to expensive commercial high-...
    (Image credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
    Illustration of an electron beam traveling through a niobium cavity—a key component of SLAC’s LCLS-II x-ray laser. It’s kept at 2 kelvins (-456°F), a temperature at which niobium conducts electricity without losses, and these cavities power a highly energetic beam that creates up to 1 million x-ray flashes/second—more than any other current or planned x-ray laser.
    Lasers & Sources

    SLAC’s LCLS-II, the world’s most powerful XFEL laser, sends first light

    Oct. 2, 2023
    In this Q&A, researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory answer our questions about the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) upgrade...
    (Courtesy of Gowerlabs)
    FIGURE 1. The researchers use LUMO, a wearable, portable, high-density functional NIR imaging device equipped with modular tiles with built-in NIR light sources and detectors.
    Bio&Life Sciences

    Using near-infrared spectroscopy to help unravel the mysteries of dementia

    Sept. 29, 2023
    New work by a U.K. team demonstrates a new technique that enables a more detailed view of brain function, which could lead to more accurate and earlier diagnosis of diseases that...
    (Courtesy of Spark Photonics)
    A passive chip from one of the AIM Photonics PIC Kits being optically characterized at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.
    Executive Forum

    From manufacturing to insurance to the vanguard of an emerging technology industry

    Sept. 28, 2023
    How the unique career path of Kevin McComber, co-founder and CEO of Spark Photonics, shaped his company’s trajectory—and spurred him to address one of advanced technology industries...