Meeting Reports

Key advances included subcycle laser development, quantum vortex visualization, and terahertz-based analysis of solar cells — showcasing the benefit of pulsed lasers across a wide range of disciplines.

Two-dimensional materials have revolutionized the field of photonics by enabling the manipulation of light at the nanoscale. As their potential continues to grow, we can expect to see more innovative applications emerging in the future.

Neuromorphic photonic systems mimicking biological neurons promise to boost the efficiency of light-based computing.

Semiconductor sources of mid-infrared and terahertz radiation are now tackling an increasingly diverse range of applications.

Light-based processing and machine learning featured heavily in San Diego at the 2024 SPIE Optics + Photonics conference. Enthusiasm was coupled with questions related to the real-world applicability and the merits of linear vs non-linear, and all-optical vs hybrid, approaches.

The field of plasmonics continues to show its potential scientific and technological impact, as new companies exploiting plasmonics beyond sensing applications emerge.

Although three-dimensional laser nanofabrication has become an established and widespread technology, research towards achieving higher resolutions, higher speeds, lower costs, mass production, more material availability and more functionality for this technology continues.

Novel optical components that withstand high-power laser irradiation and micro light-emitting diodes capable of full-colour emission were highlights of the Japan Society of Applied Physics Spring Meeting.

Fluorescence super-resolution microscopy continues to offer new prospects and opportunities to tackle biological questions.

Photonics West 2024 showcases a robust and growing photonics industry, as the field of silicon photonics works towards sustainable growth.

Metasurfaces bring miniaturization and new avenues for the generation, manipulation and measurement of quantum light.

With many exotic electromagnetic effects, metamaterials are now being exploited in real-world biomedical applications, with expected impacts in healthcare.

Photonics enables the design of ultrafast, energy-efficient computing approaches for artificial intelligence, and key to the scalability of such approaches is photonics integration.

The interaction of terahertz waves with novel materials is bringing rich physics and new opportunities for applications.

The laser community returned to Prague to celebrate science and to be connected, in person, again, while high-power lasers were in the limelight.

Progress in high-performance tandem solar cells and quantum cascade laser light sources were highlights of the Japan Society of Applied Physics Spring Meeting.

From biophotonics to chiral behaviour, research into organic LEDs is thriving and expanding into new areas.

Several research groups have now succeeded in achieving lasing in free-electron lasers (FELs) driven by compact plasma wakefield accelerators. In the future, the approach may ultimately lead to a new breed of much smaller, more affordable FELs.

Although optical communications continue to be the main driver for integrated photonics, new applications are emerging in computing and neural networks. That was the message from this year’s European Conference on Integrated Optics in Milan.

Time-varying metamaterials bring in an extra degree of freedom, enabling applications unachievable by normal metamaterials and opening up new opportunities.