Michal Chyla
Organisation: HiLASE Role: Leader of Commercial Laser Development
Michal Chyla has been instrumental in developing the compact multi-beam micromachining solution ‘PERLA C 100’ at HiLASE.
‘The next big thing is definitely multi-
beam processing, a technique where you can split your beam into a few tens of thousands beams and do the micromachining much more efficiently. This comes in really handy in surface functionalisation, where you need to process large areas in a short amount of time. This comes at a price of strict laser parameters, where beam quality and pulse energy are the most important ones.
Ernesto Ciaramella
Organisation: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna University
Role: Full Professor
Ernesto Ciaramella's recent work focuses on optical wireless communications (OWC). ‘[This] is an attractive, emerging area,
with potential applications that cover a wide range of application scenarios, including short indoor communications, long outdoor communications, and even underwater links.’ One particular focus, however, is in
space-based optical communications: ‘A few months ago, we demonstrated OWC intra- satellite links, in a realistic satellite mock-up. Today, we are involved in the design of OWC links from Earth to satellites, and even to the Moon.’
Since 2019, Ciaramella has been
the principal investigator of TOWS (Transmission of Optical Wireless signals on telecom Satellites), an ESA-funded project on the development of OWC spacecraft systems. ‘In intra-satellite OWC, we plan to further shrink our prototypes and make them more flexible, to support different protocols for the onboard equipment communications. Everything that goes on a satellite must be deeply tested and be space-qualified, but we are already making plans to send prototypes on real satellites’ Ciaramella plans to attend OFC 2023.
Nathalie Debaes
Organisation: B-PHOT Brussels Photonics Role: EU Project Support Officer Based in: Brussels, Belgium
Through B-PHOT, the self-supporting research and innovation institute based at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Nathalie Debaes has facilitated photonics innovation in several European projects, such as SMethods, Phablabs 4.0, Actphast 4.0 (and 4R) and PhotonHub Europe. Before joining B-PHOT, she worked in industry – first as an optical engineer at Barco Industries, where she worked on optical spectroscopy for food quality control. From 1999 until 2002, she was R&D manager at Automation, a Belgian engineering company, where she was
Education: Electrical Engineering (major in photonics), Vrije Universiteit Brussels
responsible for developing power supply control systems in telecom containers. Debaes is CEO of the project EYEST
(Youth for Engineering, Science and Technology), a Belgian non-profit that aims to engage school children in photonics. The project designs and distributes experimental kits, lessons and workshops, so that young people – aged 10 to 18 – can go beyond the theory and experiment with lasers and optics. So far, more than 3,400 Photonics Explorer kits have been distributed to European teachers, supporting hundreds of thousands of students each year.
Based in: Pisa, Italy Education: Laurea Degree in Physics
Based in: Dolni Brezany, Czech Republic Education: PhD in Physical Engineering Master’s in Optoelectronics
Fortunately our thin-disk PERLA lasers are handling it great,’ he said. Chyla believes energy costs will have a big impact on his work: ‘We have hundreds of square metres of clean room environment… and recent increasing energy prices might enforce limited operation of key laboratory areas. The summer months will be especially difficult for us and stopping the development for a few months on multiple projects might be problematic.’ You can find Chyla online at
linkedin.com/in/ michal-chyla-a5174b5a/. He plans to attend Photonics West.
20 Photonics100 2023
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