The industry’s most innovative people 2024 Ibrahim Abdulhalim


Organisation: Ben Gurion University of the Negev


Role: Professor


Through his work on plasmonic sensors and interference and spectral-polarimetric imaging, Ibrahim Abdulhalim develops and builds devices and systems for medical, optical metrology, energy-saving, and biosensing applications. These include tunable liquid crystal metamaterial devices, which can be combined with a digital camera, microscope, or mobile phone to capture polarimetric images, as well as a smart window that can control visibility while blocking heat from the sun – something Abdulhalim says will help to improve buildings' energy efficiency.


Igor Meglinski Organisation: Aston University


Role: Professor in Quantum Biophotonics and Biomedical Engineering


Igor Meglinski spearheads research on the interaction between shaped light carrying orbital angular momentum and quantum entanglements with biological tissues and their components, including cells, cell organelles, collagen, muscle fibres, keratin, and glucose.


“These components manifest optical


properties such as birefringence, chirality, absorption, and anisotropy of scattering,” Meglinski says, “which significantly alter the quantum properties of light. Preliminary results suggest that these properties vary with specific diseases.” He adds: “The alterations of the properties


Based in: Birmingham, UK Education: PhD


of non-classical light provide a unique opportunity to detect cancer, Alzheimer's disease, various dementias, epilepsy, and other tissue malformations with sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit.” Outside his own research area, he believes


3D holographic projection is the most significant photonics technology to emerge in the past 12 months: “It offers a unique and immersive way to visualise and interact with information, objects, and environments. Its applications span a wide range of industries and have the potential to enhance communication, education, entertainment, and problem-solving in various fields.”


Ihor Liubeka


Organisation: Crys-Teh Role: Chief Technical Officer


Ihor Liubeka’s plans for the coming year have to consider something hopefully alien to most of this year’s Photonics100 – operating in a war zone. Liubeka is chief technical officer of Crys-Teh, a manufacturer of tellerium dioxide (TeO2) for acousto-optic and polarising optic applications. The company is based in Dnipro, Ukraine, a city that has suffered several missile attacks and dozens of deaths since the Russian invasion. “I am very proud that even during the war, we in Ukraine are working and developing


Based in: Dnipro, Ukraine


Education: MSc, Physics, Dnipro National University


certain areas of photonics,” he says. He is currently working on developing and improving automatic and remote system controls for the crystal growth process “with regard to people safety in the current Ukrainian situation”. He says difficulties in achieving 100% remote control of the crystal growth process include blackouts, explosions and other military factors. “In Ukraine, there is currently a very big


problem with the supply of devices, spare parts, and materials that we use in the production process.”


Based in: Beer Sheva, Israel


Education: D.Sc, Physics, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology


Abdulhalim’s team has also developed a plasmonic substrate that gives a tunable penetration depth between 200nm and 10 microns, allowing the detection of small molecules and large bio-entities such as cells. “The big challenge is manufacturing low- cost nanoscale structures at a large scale,” Abdulhalim says. ”This is a bottleneck to the development of high-potential devices. As of now, these facilities are limited to foundries, which makes production very expensive. More funding is required to enable these technologies, which will cause revolutionary developments in many fields.”


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