EN E S TEDT.S E


g in July. Kitty Jochem,


its Vice-President of VI Engineering, is an honouree this year and Luc Augustin, its CTO,


was in last year’s list. n A consortium led by the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow won £4.7m in UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding to support the tripling of the photonics sector across Scotland’s central belt. Science Minister George


Freeman said: “As a nation with a rich history of innovation, Scotland can be central to boosting the UK’s photonics industry, which is so vital to our economic prosperity and wellbeing – from transmitting information to developing medicine. Our £4.7m investment will further grow this already booming industry.”


In the Art of Making Green Lasers


Photonics obstacles to overcome The challenge identified most frequently by last year’s cohort of honourees has not gone away – supply chain problems. However, it is clear from our


Quality is a conscious mindset – Sustainability is not a choice.


Our environment is under great pressure and now more than ever we must ensure that everything we do is sustainable, even in our world of photonics.


By choosing Cobolt quality you can be assured to get lasers that not only exceed performance expectations but will also last for years and years. This reduces your cost of ownership and our impact on the environment. And all Cobolt lasers are manufactured in Sweden using 100% fossil free renewable energy.


Join us in our strive for a more sustainable photonics industry!


honourees’ responses that the root causes of these issues are in much clearer focus throughout the industry this year. Very few answers state that production constraints alone are the issue, but rather list the contributing factors, such as war in Ukraine, increased political polarisation, tariff disputes and the ‘temptation of protectionism’. Several of our honourees identified adding fabrication capacity, diversifying suppliers, sourcing critical components closer to home and stockpiling supplies as partial solutions to the supply chain challenges, alongside more specific actions such as last year’s CHIPS and Science Act in the US and the European Chips Act, which entered force in September. Several respondents pointed


out that ongoing shortages will require more active technical steps from the industry too, such as more effort at the planning stages to streamline production and a focus on more efficient devices that require less raw material. The skills shortage, too,


reared its head again this year, with at least one respondent


"Several respondents believe ongoing shortages will require more planning to streamline production and a focus on more efficient devices”


suggesting the success of the photonics industry in growing the diversity of its technologies and the increasing field of applications in which they can be used, is putting pressure on the existing workforce. A perceived general decline in people pursuing PhDs at the start of the career pipeline, combined with experienced engineers retiring, are also cited as contributing factors. Some of our honourees see potential in exploring the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to alleviate at least some of the pressures.


Photonics tech – which ones to watch? Despite those obstacles, however, a dazzling array of photonics technologies caught our honourees’ eyes this year, first among them the rapidly advancing possibilities that quantum photonics brings. Whether it is in computing, imaging, optics or communications, the applications of quantum effects were the most-cited technology this year. However, they were only just pipped by mentions of photonic integrated circuits and silicon photonics in general. Our honourees are also


paying very close attention to developments in free space optical communications, lidar, biophotonics, high-power lasers, and the “sudden appearance” of metalenses and metaoptics in actual products, to name but a few. But please don’t take our word for it – read on to find out what the Photonics100 2024 have to say for themselves.


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