Writing a science and technology retrospective
for 2023 would be hard enough even if it weren’t following the heady performance of 2022. In its final quarter alone, 2022 saw the emergence of an interactive AI chatbot, the first net energy gain via laser-based inertial confinement fusion, and the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.
After those developments, science and technology would be justified to rest on its laurels for a minute — especially when those laurels included Webb Telescope images revealing distant planets and the ancient universe.
But though the photonics industry might rest, it never sleeps. And 2023 was not without its achievements.
Laser technology, for example, made waves this year with advancements that enabled sources to become smaller, brighter, and faster.
Researchers from the University of Twente published a paper in January that paved the way to much more compact supercontinuum lasers. Before the year was out, they developed a hand-held supercontinuum source with help from SuperLight Photonics and Menlo Systems. The underlying waveguide technology could further shrink these sources to fit onto a microchip.
Meanwhile, in September, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) fired up the world’s most powerful x-ray laser, following its upgrades to the Linac Coherent Light Source.
Then, to cap off the year, the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three researchers exploring methods to generate supremely short attosecond pulses of light. In fact, photonics also garnered the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, thanks to three scientists’ work involving quantum dots.
Photonics never sleeps. And it often surprises, which is why predicting what particular thresholds it might cross in 2024
presents high risks and little fun. I look forward to those
surprises.
It is easier and more rewarding to forecast what technology sectors will impact and be impacted most by photonics in the coming year.
A past column described the photonics industry as a breakthrough machine for other technology sectors. It is a cinch to predict that will be the case for quantum computing, communication, and sensor platforms in 2024. Granted, funding for quantum startups appears to have slowed this year, matching larger investment patterns. But as private investment has cooled, government funding has warmed to the sector. Also, both
academic and private research in quantum is increasingly
shifting from basic to applied research, and the bar for
breakthrough engineering solutions is set very low, even for Quantum 2.0. See contributing editor Andreas Thoss’s article here to learn more.
Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) will help quantum make that shift, though it is another easy bet to predict that PIC
suppliers will set their sights much higher in 2024 — namely,
on the emerging AI data center. The biggest variable in that forecast is how quickly the diffusion of AI will force hyperscale data centers and suppliers like NVIDIA to commit to more optical interconnect and PIC-based solutions to improve latency and power consumption. But if that commitment doesn’t occur
in 2024, then it won’t be long afterward.
It’s easy to make predictions if you don’t mind being wrong.
If you let us know your industry predictions for 2024,
we promise not to print them.
