Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Photonics is closely related to quantum electronics, where quantum electronics deals with the theoretical part of it while photonics deal with its engineering applications. Though covering all light's technical applications over the whole spectrum, most photonic applications are in the range of visible and near-infrared light. The term photonics developed as an outgrowth of the first practical semiconductor light emitters invented in the early 1960s and optical fibers developed in the 1970s.
Optica is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conferences and exhibitions. It currently has about 488,000 customers in 183 countries, including nearly 300 companies.
Photonic-crystal fiber (PCF) is a class of optical fiber based on the properties of photonic crystals. It was first explored in 1996 at University of Bath, UK. Because of its ability to confine light in hollow cores or with confinement characteristics not possible in conventional optical fiber, PCF is now finding applications in fiber-optic communications, fiber lasers, nonlinear devices, high-power transmission, highly sensitive gas sensors, and other areas. More specific categories of PCF include photonic-bandgap fiber, holey fiber, hole-assisted fiber, and Bragg fiber. Photonic crystal fibers may be considered a subgroup of a more general class of microstructured optical fibers, where light is guided by structural modifications, and not only by refractive index differences.
SPIE is an international not-for-profit professional society for optics and photonics technology, founded in 1955. It organizes technical conferences, trade exhibitions, and continuing education programs for researchers and developers in the light-based fields of physics, including: optics, photonics, and imaging engineering. The society publishes peer-reviewed scientific journals, conference proceedings, monographs, tutorial texts, field guides, and reference volumes in print and online. SPIE is especially well-known for Photonics West, one of the laser and photonics industry's largest combined conferences and tradeshows which is held annually in San Francisco. SPIE also participates as partners in leading educational initiatives, and in 2020, for example, provided more than $5.8 million in support of optics education and outreach programs around the world.
Sir David Neil Payne CBE FRS FREng is a British professor of photonics who is director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton. He has made several contributions in areas of optical fibre communications over the last fifty years and his work has affected telecommunications and laser technology. Payne’s work spans diverse areas of photonics, from telecommunications and optical sensors to nanophotonics and optical materials, including the introduction of the first optical fibre drawing tower in a university.
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber and find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths than electrical cables. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss; in addition, fibers are immune to electromagnetic interference, a problem from which metal wires suffer. Fibers are also used for illumination and imaging, and are often wrapped in bundles so they may be used to carry light into, or images out of confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are also used for a variety of other applications, some of them being fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers.
Optical Review is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1994 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media in partnership with the Optical Society of Japan. The editor-in-chief is Masahiro Yamaguchi. The journal publishes research and review papers in all subdisciplines of optical science and optical engineering.
The Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by IOP Publishing. It was established in 1968 from the division of the earlier title, Proceedings of the Physical Society. In 2006, the Journal of Optics B: Quantum and Semiclassical Optics was merged with the Journal of Physics B. The editor-in-chief is Marc Vrakking.
Chinese Optics Letters is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Optica. Established in 2003, it covers optics research originating in the People's Republic of China as well as coverage from groups outside the country.
Chiral Photonics, Inc. is a photonics company based in Pine Brook, New Jersey, founded in 1999. The company is developing a new class of optical devices based on twisting glass optical fibers. These in-fiber devices aim to displace discrete optical elements such as lasers, filters and sensors. They benefit from optical fiber’s transmission efficiency, robustness and ease of integration.
Robert Louis Byer is a physicist. He was president of the Optical Society of America in 1994 and of the American Physical Society in 2012.
Laser & Photonics Reviews is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research on all aspects of optical science. It is published by Wiley-VCH and contains reviews and original papers/letters. The journal was established in 2007 by the founding editor-in-chief Theodor W. Hänsch. Originally, the journal only published review articles. Since 2012, it also contains original papers and letters. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2020 impact factor of 13.138, ranking it 4th out of 99 journals in the category Optics, 12th out of 160 journals in the category Physics Applied, and 8th out of 69 journals in the category Physics Condensed Matter.
The IEEE Photonics Society, formerly the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS), is a society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), focused on the scientific and engineering knowledge about the field of quantum electronics. In the hierarchy of IEEE, the Photonics Society is one of the close to 40 technical societies organized under the IEEE Technical Activities Board.
Elektronika is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Association of Polish Electrical Engineers. It covers various topics in electronics, communications, photonics, and optics. The journal cooperates with the IEEE Poland Section, Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Photonics Society of Poland. It is abstracted and indexed in Scopus and INSPEC. The journal contains the following sections: electronics, communications, materials research, optical technology, information processing, lasers, photonics, and information technology.
PhoSFOS is a research and technology development project co-funded by the European Commission.
Paul F. McManamon is an American scientist who is best known for his work in optics and photonics, as well as sensors, countermeasures, and directed energy.
Xiaoyi Bao is a Chinese Canadian physicist, recognized for her contributions to the field of fiber optics. She is a professor at the University of Ottawa, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Fiber Optics and Photonics. Bao was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Lethbridge; the citation for the honour called her "a world-renowned scholar in her field."
International Geology Review is a peer-reviewed geoscientific publication dedicated to publishing original and timely research papers as well as in-depth scholarly reviews dealing with a wide range of topics related to the Earth sciences. The journal is published by Taylor and Francis. Geographic coverage is global and work on any part of the world is considered. The journal has been published since 1959.
Govind P. Agrawal is an Indian American physicist and a fellow of Optica, Life Fellow of the IEEE, and Distinguished Fellow of the Optical Society of India. He is the recipient of James C. Wyant Professorship of Optics at the Institute of Optics and a professor of physics at the University of Rochester. He is also a Distinguished scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) in the University of Rochester. Agrawal has authored and co-authored several highly cited books in the fields of non-linear fiber optics, optical communications, and semiconductor lasers.
Jürgen W. Czarske is a German electrical engineer and a measurement system technician. He is the director of the TU Dresden Biomedical Computational Laser Systems competence center and a co-opted professor of physics.
