| Image Credit: Photo by A.S. Berg / © 2011 Olafur Eliasson |
Each year, The International Day of Light, a UNESCO-approved day of celebration, offers a chance to showcase the capabilities of light science and technology to build a better world—through improved communications, advances in healthcare and vision, and scores of other areas. And, as the July/August cover story of Optica's magazine Optics & Photonics News (OPN) makes clear, light and optics are powerfully equipped to improve life in yet another sense: by adding to the world's store of beauty.
The OPN story profiles eight artists who are inspired by light, and who incorporate dazzling light effects, optical materials and optical principles directly in their work. For some of these artists—such as the Dutch-Icelandic Olafur Eliasson, who is also a goodwill ambassador for renewable energy and climate action with the UN Development Program—working with light and optics also feeds back into a sense of how science, technology and political action can help reshape the future.
"We create much of the light by which we see the world," Eliasson says. "So we must also take an interest in what kind of light we see." |
|
|
|
|
|
| Image Credit: Photo by Mirage C / Getty Images |
| The 2022 Advanced Photonics Congress, which took place from 24 to 28 July in Maastricht, Netherlands, highlighted the latest advances in optical materials, optical signal processing, optical communications and integrated optics. OPN spoke with plenary speaker Matthias Wuttig in the July/August 2022 issue-read the story to learn more about how mapping chemical bonds to material properties can offer shortcuts for designing novel optical materials. |
|
|
|
|
|
| Image Credit: Optica |
The Optica Foundation 20th Anniversary Challenge will celebrate 10 early-career professionals within our community who want to leverage optics and photonics in driving new scientific discoveries and breakthroughs to transform our world.
The challenge seeks those who have problem-solving solutions resulting from basic research and development or enhancements of photonics-based technology in three categories: Environment, Health and Information. The prize is intended to provide seed money and some financial support to ideas that may be difficult to fund from other sources.
Ten winning proposals will each receive a US$100,000 prize to support addressing the challenge over a 1-2 year period. |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| Learn more from Filipp Ignatovich, Rochester Local Section President, on the impacts of the War in Ukraine. |
|
|
|
|
|
 Image Credit: Photo by Getty Images |
|
|
|
|
 Image Credit: A. Khoury |
|
| Optica Fellow Spotlight |
| At 13, 2022 Fellow Antonio Zelaquett Khoury asked a question and the answer guided his professional career. The answer? Physics. Learn more about his question and Antonio in this month's Fellow Profile. |
|
|
|
|
|
| Image Credit: Optica |
The election for the 2023 Optica Vice President and two Directors at Large is open! Instructions to access your ballot were sent on 20 July 2022. The election will remain open until 16 September 2022. Optica needs your vote to select the best leaders for the Society. Please read the candidates' profiles and election statements, and then take a few moments to cast your ballot. The ballot is fully accessible from your smartphone/mobile device. Questions related to the Optica elections should be sent to voting@optica.org.
Results will be announced Tuesday, 18 October 2022, at the Optica Annual Business Meeting during the 2022 FiO + LS Meeting. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Optica Announces 2022 Class of Senior Members |
| The 2022 class joins a distinguished group of scientists, engineers, entrepreneur and innovators who have demonstrated exemplary professional accomplishments in optics and photonics. |
|
|
|
|
|
