Here is something David Goldman, vice president of marketing for Lumus, never expected to come into the field of view of waveguides: Wine growers using augmented reality (AR) glasses to teach unskilled labor workers exactly where to prune grape vines, leading to productivity gains of up to fivefold. Though the adoption of AR glasses in this enterprise application and others is worthy of a toast, the technology still has a long road to broad consumer adoption. Alluding to the Gartner Hype Cycle,...

Laser welding finds its place in fields such as electromobility (e-mobility), aerospace, ship and rail transport, construction, the energy sector, semiconductor, consumer electronics, medical device manufacturing, and others. Its flexibility and...

Contact-free thickness measurements are increasingly important in industrial process monitoring and quality control. In the automotive and aviation industries, the exact thickness of paint and coating layers not only affects the overall appearance...

New polishing technologies caused a significant shift in optical manufacturing during the start of the 21st century. Computer numerical control (CNC) and deterministic optical polishing/figuring techniques have taken center stage to transform how...

October is beautiful in Munich. Hotel room prices relax after the end of Oktoberfest and local parks display autumn colors while the weather is still pleasant. Such was the setting when EPIC held its recent technology meeting on Industrial Quantum...

Lurking among coral reefs, the snapping shrimp grows to be only ~3 cm, but it wields one of the most powerful claws under the sea. The creature’s claw can shut so quickly that it fires out a jet of water, generating a bubble that collapses to...

A figure-of-nine femtosecond fiber laser seeds a novel dispersion patterned chip to enable compact, low-power supercontinuum generation. The new technology could support more portable supercontinuum sources for sensing, ranging, and imaging...

In 2020, the world slammed to a halt. Flights were grounded. Cars remained parked in driveways. Smokestacks were extinguished, and industrial projects were put on hold as billions of people were confined to their homes. All the usual suspects of...

Studies cited by the Independent Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) show that using automatic switching on old-fashioned high beams whenever possible reduces nighttime automotive crashes with animals, pedestrians, and unlit bicycles or cars by 26%....

Attosecond photonics allows for deep insights into material dynamics on ultrashort timescales and at nanometer resolutions. Because the attosecond is the natural timescale of electron motion within atoms, molecules, and solids, the applications for...

In 2000, Berthold Leibinger, the man who brought laser technology into Germany’s TRUMPF Group, established the Innovation Award — expressed in native German as the “Innovationspreis” — to honor outstanding R&D in...

Many trends in the manufacture of photonic systems are well known: miniaturize and integrate components, scale-up batch sizes, and, increasingly, expand automated and sustainable manufacturing. At the same time, quality control remains a priority...

In 2018, when California became the first state to pass legislation requiring the measuring of microplastics in drinking water supplies, it essentially set off a competition that would pit photonic technologies against one another as well as...

It is strange that the study of materials has been intertwined with the study of our universe. Somewhat paradoxically, improving our grasp of atoms has enabled us to answer questions about the cosmos. Although humanity has always looked to the stars...

We have all heard that photonic integrated circuits (PICs) can pack a ton of functionality into high-performance, energy-efficient, and low-cost microchips, as well as the promise that they will enable a revolution of powerful optoelectronic devices...

If lasers helped to redefine many manufacturing operations, then ultrashort-pulsed (USP) lasers promise to revolutionize them. They can process almost any material, and they can do so with a precision that extends below micrometers. This advantage...

Ultraviolet laser optics tend to have limited lifetimes, due primarily to two processes: laser-induced contamination (LIC) and UV fatigue. LIC is caused by the deposition of unwanted material on the surface of the optic, whereas UV fatigue results...

Chalcogenide glasses — more commonly known as chalcogenides — have been around for some time and offer several benefits over other IR optical materials. They are comparatively lightweight, offer excellent thermal properties, and can be precisely...

From applications in ophthalmology, endoscopy, and microscopy — to use in head-up displays, lidar systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, and satellites — freeform optics are enhancing the performance of existing imaging systems and are key...

The internet is an inescapable part of modern life, and the hardware that enables it is almost as ubiquitous. Fiber cables transmit terabytes of data around the world every second and, although the technology is constantly evolving, it has become...

Ultrashort pulse lasers, such as femtosecond lasers, are becoming increasingly easy-to-use plug and play devices suitable for a wide range of industrial and biomedical applications. Fifteen years ago, these lasers were large mainframe affairs...

Ten years ago, Tony Amarel’s recruitment firm in Rochester, New York, rarely heard from clients who were willing to pay a fee to fill optical technician positions. But by 2021, the six-county Rochester metropolitan area saw the number of jobs...

Vertical farming, also known as sky farming, is the practice of growing food crops in vertically stacked layers in controlled indoor spaces using soilless hydroponic or aeroponic growing methods. Vertical farming does not replace conventional...

The laser is a versatile tool for many applications partly due to its capacity to generate harmonic wavelengths in which, for example, two red photons combine to generate a blue photon. But with the advent of ultrashort laser pulses, processes were...

In recent years, lasers have made significant inroads into analytical applications, such as semiconductor test and analysis. They are now incorporated into analytical instruments, for example, to detach single atoms from a tiny tip, or to measure a...