Olaf Hollricher
Organisation: WITec Role: Co-founder and managing director – R&D
Based in: Ulm, Germany
Olaf Hollricher is unequivocal about his approach to research. A primary source of innovation in scanning near-field microscopy (SNOM) and Raman imaging microscopy, he said: ‘To really innovate, you need to get past so-called “conventional wisdom” – this idea that if others aren’t pursuing it, it isn’t worth pursuing. Ultimately, my approaches to cantilever- based SNOM and fast Raman imaging were vindicated, but I had to actually demonstrate the systems working before many people accepted their viability.’
Neveen Hosny
Organisation: M Squared Life Role: Head of Operations and Product Development
Neveen Hosny’s focus at M Squared Life is on developing technology that encompasses light interaction with biology. ‘Our main research area is microscopy, specifically light sheet microscopy,’ she said. ‘Light sheet as a technology has exploded over the past few years, with a range of different approaches to deal with specific biological problems. However, the next big thing could be in label-free imaging and utilising NIR-mid IR lasers in microscopy.’ However, these advances place high demands on current computational
Based in: Stratford, London, UK Education: PhD in Medical Engineering, Queen Mary University of London
resources, said Hosny. ‘The increase in data output brings the daunting task of analysing that data and users having the correct tools with which to handle their imaging pipeline. ‘It’s very easy to visualise data, but
that doesn’t provide statistics that lead to developments in new methods and therapies that can impact societal benefits, that could lead to a breakthrough in cellular mechanism leading to targeted drugs or therapies. Tools to process data are now the slowest part of light sheet imaging.’ You can find Hosny online at
linkedin.com/in/ neveen-hosny-b99b8b44/.
Kyohei Iwamoto
Organisation: Sony Space Communications Corporation
Role: President
As demand for data increases and radio bandwidth becomes ever more crowded, more operators are looking to orbital optical communications to keep up. But how many are using laser technology whose origins may lay in your living room? Kyohei Iwamoto was appointed
President of the newly formed Sony Space Communications Corporation in mid-2022 to do exactly that. Iwamoto said it is working on ‘technology and business development of small laser communication systems for micro-satellites based on commercial optical disk technologies and devices’.
Sony has already conducted successful
tests transmitting high-definition image data by laser from the International Space Station to a ground station in Japan. Apart from seeking signal processing
technologies that can maximise the data rate to be handled with smaller optics for use in low Earth orbit, Iwamoto said the technology will also involve ‘AI for automatic routing through fluid nodes as well as robotics’. You can find Iwamoto online at
linkedin.com/ in/kyohei-iwamoto-513b4415/. He plans to attend Photonics West, ICSOS and Smallsat.
Based in: California, USA Education: PhD, Osaka University, Japan
While he is reluctant to reveal potentially commercially sensitive details of upcoming product developments, he said WiTec will continue ‘bringing Raman imaging microscopy to ever more fields of application and combining it with other methods for correlative analysis’. Hollricher believes supply chain issues will be the biggest challenge in the year ahead: ‘We’ve managed to keep the line running, although I think critical component sourcing will continue to be a preoccupation for everyone.’
Education: PhD in Physics,
Forschungszentrum Jülich; Physics Dipl, University of Cologne
32 Photonics100 2023
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