In case it isn’t already on your radar, Laser Focus World’s PhotonicsNXT 2026 virtual event—it’s free—is October 14-15th. We’ve got great educational sessions lined up for you covering intriguing optics, photonics, quantum, and sensing advances, and we’re thrilled to announce keynote talks by Natalie Fardian-Melamed (Columbia University): “Force, Spoken in light: Photon avalanche as a new language for sensing at scale;” Haoran Ren (Monash University): “Advancing light manipulation: Multi-domain applications of modern metasurfaces;” Birgit Stiller (Leibniz University Hannover, and Max-Planck Institute for the Science of Light): “Sound waves that process light information: A road toward reconfigurable optical neural networks and versatile quantum signal processing;” and Justin Sigley (AmeriCOM): “Predicting and preventing damage in continuous-wave high-energy laser optics.”

I hope you’ll be able to join us for the live event, but the presentations will be available on-demand after PhotonicsNXT 2026. More details to come soon!

Sally Cole Johnson, Editor in Chief
Laser Focus World