Optics and photonics constitutes a vast field, as Optics & Photonics News tries to convey every month. Here’s a look at 25 features, interviews and news stories from 2023 that particularly resonated with our audience (as measured by the number of pageviews they scored on our website).
Conversations
The Sphere Lights Up the Vegas Strip
OPN’s most popular story online, by a wide margin, was an interview with Stuart Elby, who led the engineering effort on the high-tech 18,000-seat arena now dazzling audiences and passers-by in Las Vegas. [21 August 2023]
Feature
Photonic Computing for Sale
Freelance science journalist Edwin Cartlidge looked at the companies that are increasingly being set up to commercialize optical processors—and the benefits and sticking points of the technology. [January 2023 issue]
Year in Optics
Optics in 2023
A perennial favorite, the 41st annual installment of our review of some of the year’s top research stories featured 30 write-ups from researchers that illustrate the broad sweep of optical and photonic science and engineering. [December 2023 issue]
Conversations
A Talk with Herbert Winful
A Q&A with the noted scientist and professor at the University of Michigan—one of a series of popular interviews with Black scientists that formed the background for our May 2023 feature “Breaking Barriers, Advancing Optics.” [03 April 2023]
Feature
Wanted: Optics and Photonics Technicians
OPN looked at the optics community’s chronic shortage of skilled technical workers, what it could mean for industry growth, and how the community is working to fill the pipeline [February 2023 issue]
Feature
The Birth of Picophotonics
Researchers Nikolay I. Zheludev and Kevin F. MacDonald, with the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton, UK, explored the emergence of a new field enabled by the structuring of light at deeply subwavelength scales. [September 2023 issue]
Feature
What Computer Vision Can Learn from Insect Vision
Luat T. Vuong, Doekele G. Stavenga and Geoffrey L. Barrows revealed how the superbly adapted vision of insects is offering intriguing examples for the development of lightweight visual systems for UAVs and other applications. [November 2023 issue]
Feature
Generative AI Meets Scientific Publishing
In a nod to the Zeitgeist, freelance contributor Melanie Padgett Powers examined the potential impact of tools like ChatGPT on how science is communicated, especially in the peer-reviewed literature. [October 2023 issue]
Feature
Subsea Fiber: Into the Deep
Freelance science journalist Susan Curtis looked at the phenomenal growth of subsea fiber infrastructure, and how the fiber is being pressed into service for functions beyond global communications. [March 2023 issue]
Feature
Fifty Years of Fiber Solitons
A half-century after a pioneering paper hypothesizing their existence, John M. Dudley, Christophe Finot, Goëry Genty and Roy Taylor told the story of how the study of tiny, solitary pulses in optical fiber has influenced a wide swath of research areas across optics and photonics. [May 2023 issue]
Feature
Entrepreneurs to Watch
In the 2023 installment of its biennial feature, OPN threw the spotlight on a selection of creative scientists and engineers—and the enterprises they’re building. [July/August 2023 issu]
Research News
Attosecond Physics Pioneers Take 2023 Nobel Prize
The naming of Anne L’Huillier, Pierre Agostini and Ferenc Krausz as joint winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics was one of the high points of 2023—a year that also saw three luminaries in quantum dots honored with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. [03 October 2023]
Feature
Fusion’s Direct Drive
A few months after the announcement of the first laser-driven fusion ignition at the US National Ignition Facility, OPN looked at alternative approaches to laser fusion being researched by government, academia and industry. [June 2023 issue]
Feature
MXenes for Optics and Photonics
Jeffrey Simon, Colton Fruhling, Hyunho Kim, Yury Gogotsi and Alexandra Boltasseva dug into the photonic and optoelectronic prospects of an emerging class of versatile 2D materials. [November 2023 issue]
Research News
Refraction with a Grating of Air
Researchers devised a method to change the direction of laser light using sound waves. [11 October 2023]
Feature
Illuminating Wildfire Risk
Freelance science journalist Meeri Kim reported on how optics is helping researchers better understand the threats and reduce the impact of wildfires, even as climate change is increasing their frequency and intensity. [September 2023 issue]
Feature
Topology: Photonics on the Edge
Research scientist Andrea Blanco-Redondo reviewed progress in engineering the “topological phase” of materials, and how the prospect is opening new application domains. [March 2023 issue]
Feature
Two Breakthroughs That Revolutionized Optics
Science journalist and longtime OPN contributor Jeff Hecht recounted the joint history of lasers and fiber optics—a pairing that illustrates the many interconnected steps through which truly revolutionary breakthroughs unfold. [January 2023 issue]
Research News
Biodegradable Gratings Made from Crab Shell Waste
Researchers coaxed extracted chitosan from discarded materials into producing lightweight, inexpensive optical components. [30 March 2023]
Industry News
Lockheed Martin Targets 500-kW Laser
The company will produce its most powerful laser yet under a new contract from the US Department of Defense. [09 August 2023]
OPN Careers
A Career in Laser Safety
OPN interviewed Ken Barat, an award-winning laser safety consultant, about working as a laser safety officer and avoiding dangers in labs. [07 July 2023]
Feature
Quantum Promise Becomes Commercial Reality
The quantum revolution that originated in research labs around the world is starting to make an impact in the commercial realm. [July/August 2023 issue]
Feature
James Webb Space Telescope: A Sparkling Optical Success
Freelance science journalist Patricia Daukantas looked at some of the spectacular scientific results—enabled by optics—that characterized the pathbreaking telescope’s first year of observation. [July/August 2023 issue]
Feature
Use Photonics. Find a Solution. Change the World.
A glimpse of the research being pursued by some of the first-year winners of the Optica Foundation Challenge, which enables early-career optics researchers to pursue high-impact ideas. [April 2023 issue]
Feature
Advancing Nanolasers
Min-Soo Hwang, Hong-Gyu Park, Qinghai Song and Yuri Kivshar shared how recent advances in technology and physics offer new possibilities for efficient control of nanolasers, to enable faster information processing at lower powers. [January 2023 issue]
