SPIE’s Photonics West 2020 (Feb. 1-6) already boasts one Nobel Laureate as a confirmed presenter, and is on track to match or exceed last year’s number of technical papers, according to organizers. Photonics West 2020 will take place Feb. 1-6 in San Francisco. Eric Betzig will present a plenary talk on the second night of the conference. Betzig was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in chemistry, along with Stefan Hell and William Moerner, for the development of an optical microscope that surpassed the Abbe limit. Other plenaries in the LASE and OPTO conferences will cover next-gen data centers, quantum computing, and other trending areas of photonics. OPTO will cover a broad range of optoelectronic technologies and their integration into a variety of commercial applications. Topics will include optoelectronic materials and devices, photonic integration, displays and holography, nanotechnologies in photonics, advanced quantum and optoelectronic applications, MOEMSMEMS, and optical communications. LASE will showcase the latest fundamental and applied research on new laser sources and applications. Topics will include laser source engineering nonlinear optics and beam guiding, laser manufacturing, laser micro/nano applications, and 3D manufacturing. BiOS, Prism Awards The BiOS exhibition alone accounts for more than 2300 papers, the largest program under the Photonics West umbrella. BiOS, which also holds the distinction of being the largest conference in the world covering biophotonics, will host the Saturday Night BiOS Hot Topics, where speakers will cover topics such as machine learning for 3D microscopy, QPI (quantitative phase imaging), and labelfree imaging. “Other BiOS technical presentations will focus on advances in translational biophotonics, brain research, and neurophotonics,” SPIE public relations manager Daneet Steffens told Photonics Media. Co-located with Photonics West, SPIE will also offer the AR/VR/MR conference, which has grown from a single day of talks and hardware demos. The three-day event will include an academic track that showcases the Student Optical Design Challenge and technical papers courses covering AR/VR/MR technologies, more than 40 industry leaders sharing trends and insights, and end-of-day networking receptions. Since 2008, Photonics Media and SPIE have celebrated the best new optics and photonics products with the Prism Awards. The application deadline for the 2020 awards is Oct. 11. Last year’s Photonics West exhibition was a banner year, Steffens said, with more than 23,000 registered attendees, 1350 exhibitors, and more than 5200 papers. “Registration opens in October, but at this stage we’re on track to match last year’s number of papers, and the exhibition alone is tracking ahead of last year’s numbers,” Steffens said. For more information on Photonics West 2020, visit www.spie.org.