The great French philosopher Voltaire wrote that we should "judge a person by their questions, rather than their answers." This advice should be applied to the articles we publish in Laser Focus World. We have at least one good question at the start (and heart) of every article we publish. You can judge whether we have posed good questions in this issue—and whether the articles provide interesting answers.
Our cover story by senior editor Gail Overton has a question as the title: "How does additive manufacturing 'stack up' against subtractive methods?" She goes on to review the current state of the art in technologies for laser additive manufacturing and reveals their strengths, weaknesses, and potential (see page 23). In his article, contributing editor Jeff Hecht describes a mission, "The quest for extreme fiber bandwidth," in which he tries to answer two big questions: how to develop economical and deployable technology for spatial division multiplexing and how to persuade carriers to invest in the cost of installing new fiber (see page 43).
In her article, Stephanie Fullerton at Hamamatsu answers questions about how to choose a scientific imaging camera for projects ranging from simple bright field applications to complex computational imaging (see page 37). The question of how to study new molecular species at femtosecond and attosecond timescales is at least partially answered in an article on high-harmonic-generation spectroscopy by Felicity McGrath and colleagues at the Imperial College London (see page 29). And Mustafa Coskun at Cambridge Technology provides an answer to the question of how manufacturers can use laser scanners to keep up with the growing demands for large-area, web-fed, and remote laser processing applications (see page 50).
Voltaire, a leading figure of the 18th century Enlightenment and fan of Sir Isaac Newton, was prone to asking challenging political questions. For the 21st century, I hope that at least some of your challenging technology questions will be answered in this issue.
Conard Holton
Conard Holton has 25 years of science and technology editing and writing experience. He was formerly a staff member and consultant for government agencies such as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and engineering companies such as Bechtel. He joined Laser Focus World in 1997 as senior editor, becoming editor in chief of WDM Solutions, which he founded in 1999. In 2003 he joined Vision Systems Design as editor in chief, while continuing as contributing editor at Laser Focus World. Conard became editor in chief of Laser Focus World in August 2011, a role in which he served through August 2018. He then served as Editor at Large for Laser Focus World and Co-Chair of the Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar from August 2018 through January 2022. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, with additional studies at the Colorado School of Mines and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.