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.” (Click through this media gallery for more details about these keynote talks.)

We hope you’ll be able to join us for the live event, but the presentations will be available on-demand after PhotonicsNXT 2026. Register now!