As data volumes continue to explode, the energy demands of data centers are also skyrocketing, posing a significant environmental and economic burden. Integrated photonics offers a promising solution to this challenge. It enables more efficient data transmission and reducing the overall power consumption of data centers. Data centers are the backbone of our digital world. Cloud computing, artificial intelligence based tools like ChatGPT and Bard, and the internet of things are all made possible by the deployment of data centers at strategic locations around the world. You are able to read this ..read more

Electro-optics is the technology that uses electrical signals to control optical properties. It is one of the most useful areas of photonics. In this article, you will learn about why electro-optics is important as well as how it is used in various photonic applications. Why are electro-optic effects so important? Electricity and electronics absolutely dominate technology as we know it today. Several optical materials are passive – they have fixed optical properties e.g. absorption, refractive index, etc. In contrast, the optical properties of some materials can be controlled with an electrica ..read more

On this page you can find curated photonics industry news and updates for the month of August 2022 here. A big boost for the US Photonics Industry President Joe Biden signed the chips and science act on Tuesday 9th August 2022. The chips and science act will liberate $ 52.7 billion in subsidies for US semiconductor R&D and manufacturing. Naturally, some chunk of these subsidies will boost the optics and photonics industry. “Optics and photonics are key enabling technologies in every aspect of the chip manufacturing process, and the new law will have a very positive impact on our community ..read more

In this report, we take a close look at the best laser diode sources for automotive lidar. The laser source is arguably the most important component of any lidar system. Laser characteristics like wavelength, power, and pulse duration ultimately determine key lidar performance parameters. These parameters include range, sensitivity, noise immunity, frame rate, and field of view. As a hobbyist or lidar system design engineer you need to take several factors into account when selecting a laser source for an automotive lidar system. It is important for you to find the right balance between perfor ..read more

Have you ever wondered why all automotive lidar systems use laser diodes emitting at either 905 nm or 1550 nm? In this report, you will learn why this is the case. Oh and even more interesting, you will finally get to learn which wavelength is best for automotive lidar. The question we focus on in this report is an important one since advanced automotive lidar is a key component in future self-driving cars. As you probably already know, lidar stands for light detection and ranging. It is a remote sensing technique that uses a laser light source to map out its environment. Automotive lidar syst ..read more

Light detection and ranging (sometimes abbreviated as LiDAR or lidar) is a remote sensing and ranging technique. Lidars use a laser to probe their surroundings to determine the position and velocity of objects of interest. In this report, I will walk you through why lidar is so important, how it works, and then take a look at the central role photonics plays in its development. Why is lidar so useful? We start by addressing why lidar is so useful as a remote sensing technique. Over the years remote sensing technology has come a long way. Early methods like photogrammetry and surveying were rep ..read more

People are increasingly worried about lidar eye safety. Demand for lidar technology is increasing to satisfy applications like self-driving cars and aerial surveying. Twenty years from now we will have several lidar-enabled devices in our immediate environment. This has raised a new concern for many people: is lidar dangerous for your eyes? Lidar-enabled devices use lasers to scan their environment and in so doing build an accurate image of their surroundings. You can find some more information on how lidars work by checking out our feature article on lidars. Lasers are coherent and collimated ..read more

This photonics engineer survey was carried out to identify the issues plaguing photonics engineers on a daily basis. Most (if not all) online surveys focused on photonics discuss salary. No one thinks about solving actual problems photonics engineers run up against on a daily basis. Solving these issues is crucial to making photonics engineers more effective in their daily jobs. A lot of photonics engineers have a hard time being effective in their day-to-day jobs. Photonics as a discipline is quite unique. It is a proper research and development (R&D) discipline. In photonics, we have fun ..read more

Photonics is concerned with the control of photons. As a technology, photonics focuses on manipulating light to achieve some practical goals like telecommunication, sensing, industrial processing etc. In photonics, photons are controlled in many ways e.g. switching, re-routing, modulation and amplification. As semiconductors have become more important in optics, we have seen the emergence of hybrid fields where electronics and light come together. For example, we have electro-optics: devices with electrically controlled optical behaviour e.g. liquid crystal displays (LCD). Another is optoelect ..read more

The internet started out over 40 years ago with slow speeds and severely limited experiences. Today, you can stream high-quality videos on the go and play around with virtual/augmented reality. Our expectations for the internet of the future  —  the metaverse, blockchain technology, real-time internet of things, self-driving cars, etc.  —  all hinge on ultra-high volume data transfer with no latency. Sure you can build fancy software and dream up clever abstractions which can then be used to build rich user experiences. The truth is all the software, standards and protocols have to work on a p ..read more