Flow Cytometry is an analytical technique that utilizes optical measurements to identify properties of individual cells and particles within large populations. The high-throughput technique measures optical scattering and fluorescence by interrogating a rapidly flowing stream containing suspended objects. The technology has advanced dramatically over the last few decades and became an essential tool of studying cell biology in clinical, research, and translational applications. The photonics industry is expected to play an essential role in the next evolution of the technology to meet the demand of performing higher-parameter measurements, cell imaging, automation, and simplified setup and analysis procedures.

Scinvivo is a medtech startup fully focused on improving the quality of life of bladder cancer patients by improving the current bladder cancer diagnostics and treatment. To achieve this, we are developing an optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging catheter, which allows the urologist to look up to 3 mm inside the tissue of the bladder wall. The catheter fits in the working channel of a cystoscope, and if the urologist sees something suspicious on the cystoscopy image s/he can insert the catheter and get a cross-sectional image at the point of interest (real time). Reading the guidelines, we've found that Bladder Cancer diagnostics boils down to getting insight into the bladder wall structure to determine the type of tissue and the stage of the tumor growth. With the diagnostic tools currently available this is impossible. Within the current bladder cancer carepath we’ve identified two main “unmet needs” for which our forward-looking OCT-catheter provides the solution: differentiating between non-invasive and muscle-invasive bladder cancer as early as possible in the diagnostic phase, and the follow-up monitoring of BC patients to reduce the number of unnecessary surgeries caused by false positives. We are currently collecting the evidence to show that our OCT-catheter can solve these umnet needs, and is a gamechanger for bladder cancer diagnostics and treatment.

Several promising, growing cancer therapies are phototherapies, where lasers play central role. Examples of such phototherapies where Modulight has invested over many years are photoimmunotherapy (PIT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT). In these therapies, non-thermal lasers are used to activate photosensitive drug precisely in the tumor, causing very few side effects thanks to improved spatio-temporal control of treatment compared to mainstream systemic cancer treatments. However, the field is highly regulated and requires multi-disciplinary, collaborative environment for successful clinical implementation. Laser therapies offer clear set of advantages in both curative and palliative cancer treatments, and some examples will be shown in this presentation. The utilization of clinical laser therapies is growing and about to realize their vast potential in standard cancer care.

Imaging within the SWIR band (900 – 1700 nm) has been made practical by the development of InGaAs detectors. This opens new opportunities for research in life science, and particularly for small animal fluorescence imaging. The advantages of shifting to the NIR-II/SWIR band have been demonstrated: thanks to reduced absorption, scattering and autofluorescence of tissues, imaging can be achieved with higher resolution much deeper in the organism. While new fluorophores, such as carbon nanotubes and gold nanoparticles are being developed, the associated preclinical research is quickly developing. The C-RED 2 camera, developed by First Light imaging, is specifically designed for high-end low light SWIR applications. The use case of in vivo small animal fluorescence imaging with the C-RED 2 camera will be discussed to illustrate potential applications of the technology.

The role of photonics in healthcare is always pushing the boundaries of life science imaging and now more economical light sources are required, whilst achieving essential technical performance characteristics. In this presentation, we will consider the evolution of ultrafast laser sources over the last few years and demonstrate how important factors such as: microscopy integration, reliability and robustness are fostering new opportunities for ultrashort-pulse lasers to be adopted for a wide range of life science applications. Throughout the presentation, reference will be made to healthcare research conducted using fixed wavelength femtosecond sources for two-photon fluorescence microscopy and laser irradiation of nanoparticles.

Raman spectroscopy enables the recognition of different tissue samples based on their unique biochemical structure. Endofotonics has developed a decision-support system for in-vivo gastric cancer diagnosis. The presentation will share the unique challenges of developing the Raman spectroscopy into a manufacturable medical device, and the learning points as Endofotonics successfully transformed this research prototype into a clinical product.

Ultrafast lasers have established themselves as reliable industrial tools for high precision manufacturing. They have seen impressive deployment on manufacturing floors worldwide. The recent development of kW class ultrafast lasers opens the way to new markets and applications, centred around the concept of 'micro-processing at macro-scales'. Market opportunities and innovation potential are both large, and we will review the current status of ultrafast laser high throughput processing.

Since 2013 polygon scanner systems have become available on the commercial market. Polygon scanning technology offers very high scanning speeds, linear scanning speeds of 25 to 100 m/s are easily achieved enabling MHz laser pulse frequencies or larger spot sizes at lower pulse frequencies that need speed. The system integrator should understand that this speed is achieved using a scanning architecture very different from well-understood galvo scanning systems. In our session, we will explain the system architecture of polygon scanner systems, what we offer as key components, and what the integrator needs to do in designing a performant laser processing system. Then we will discuss different scanning strategies. When using polygon scanners the laser process and scan strategy need to be tailored for the raster scanning operation. We will discuss large area surface treatment and how this compares to traditional scanning approaches. At last, we will discuss integration considerations on the system level, what are the requirements of the laser, laser synchronization, and show an example that when your process allows for high-speed processing it will benefit your product processing costs compared to established (scanning) technologies.

Advancements in the control and coordination of laser precession scanning heads are making possible the precision laser micromilling of knovel features. The growing ability to process macro-scale features with micrometer level precision is due in large part to control techniques which coordinate precession laser scanners and servo stages in synchronous motion. This talk will provide a brief introduction to the motion control behind laser micro-milling scan heads and techniques for coordinating motion across scan head and servo stage degrees-of-freedom.

Photonics is a key technology for the digitisation of the European economy and for Europe's future technological sovereignty. The priorities set by the von der Leyen Commission, in particular the Green Deal and the industrial strategy, will require even greater efforts and more public and private investment in photonics. Thus, the European photonics community - through Photonics21 - and the European Commission are currently preparing a Photonics Partnership in the next framework programme. With the recent Council decision to reduce the budget of Horizon Europe, photonics is facing a major challenge.

On 11 November 2020, the UK Government introduced its National Security and Investment Bill ("Bill") into Parliament, which will significantly strengthen its powers to investigate and potentially prohibit transactions on national security grounds. The Bill contains a mandatory notification regime, backed up by criminal sanctions, for transactions in sectors thought most likely to raise national security concerns, and a voluntary notification process (underpinned by a "call-in" power) for other transactions that may affect UK national security interests. What will this mean in practice for the photonics industry?

New industrial lasers for emerging applications and markets

Industrial supercontinuum white light lasers can now be found in some of the most demanding industries such as semiconductor quality control, food sorting, and optical device characterization. The demand from emerging markets like plastic recycling, food sorting, metrology, and characterization of optical components for mobile phones is rising and here white light lasers are a key enabling technology. The robust all-fiber design of our lasers makes them reliable and maintenance-free with low cost of ownership when compared to alternative light sources. By use of spectroscopic analysis or hyper spectral imaging, large scale production facilities can install fast online sorting whereby different grades and qualities can be sorted based on each’s samples spectral response. This is dramatically improving quality and throughput while reducing waste. This is only one of many success stories from emerging markets within sorting and device characterization.

High power diode lasers (HPDLs) offer the highest wall-plug efficiency, highest specific power (Power-to-weight ratio) and arguably the lowest cost and highest reliability among all lasers, especially compared to fiber lasers and diode pumped solid state lasers (DPSSLs). However, in today’ real applications, the market is still dominated by fiber lasers and DPSSLs although direct diode laser applications are growing. The more widespread applications and thus higher market growth of HPDLs are limited by the poor beam quality of HPDLs. Naturally, one of directions of HPDL technologies is to improve the beam quality from semiconductor design and fabrication point of view. On the other hand, for most of the applications no matter it is laser matter interaction or information transmitting or illumination, three factors determine if a laser can be used for a specific application: power density, beam shape, intensity profile. It is known that beam shaping is the process of redistributing the irradiance and phase of a beam of optical radiation. Although the etendue of a light source can only remain constant or increase as light propagates through an optical system, the beam parameter product (BPP) of a light source can be reduced in one direction with the sacrifice of the other direction by beam shaping. Beam shaping micro-optics have the possibility to control and deliver photons emitted by light sources to the right place at the right time. To unlock the potential of HPDLs and make light energy emitted from HPDLs usable to open up new dimensions in applications and achieve high market growth, diode laser light sources and beam shaping micro-optics should be designed cohesively. Successful examples of matching of diode laser light sources and beam shaping micro-optics driving new applications are presented.

The continuous miniaturization of components and devices along with the increasing need of sustainability in production requires materials which can fulfill the manifold requests concerning their functionality. From an industrial point of view emphasis is on cost reduction either for the materials, the processes, or for both, along with a facilitation of processing and a general reduction of resource consumption in manufacturing. Materials play a crucial role in lean processing and reduction of resource consumption. Multifunctional nanoscale materials have been widely investigated due to their tunable material properties and their ability to fulfill the increasingly growing demands in miniaturization, ease of processes, low-cost manufacturing, scalability, reliability, and finally sustainability. The combination of chemically designed multifunctional low-cost materials with tunable optical properties is very attractive for (integrated) optical and waferscale applications, particularly

forthcoming

When applying picosecond laser pulses of the order of several mJ pulse energy, the goal is to deliver the pulses effectively to the surface. HiLASE have development novel diode pumped thin-disk laser systems which are used for high speed drilling (700 holes simultaneously) and high speed surface structuring (several cm2 per second). Different methods of multi-beam processing will be presented.

Femtosecond lasers were proven to be powerful tool in surface structuring. As surfaces play an enormous role in everyday life there were numerous attempts in utilizing femtosecond laser structured surfaces. In most cases, research rarely exceeded proof of concept stage. One of the key challenges preventing laser surface structuring from becoming widespread solution is the structuring rate. Due to complex light-matter interaction happening between incident light and surface single features of such patterns can be as small as tens of nm while overall multi-scale hierarchical structures can be created. We present a study aimed at evaluating what parameters are best for specific applications and for high throughput manufacturing (more than square meter per minute). Target applications include anti-icing, osseointegration and friction manipulations. Overall, presented results show that even while increasing the throughput to industrial level one can still maintain superb surface properties.

Ice build-up on the surface of aircraft can severely impact the performance and safety. Currently, the strategies used to prevent ice build-up, for example de-icing fluids, are expensive and not environmentally-friendly. Surface microstructuring can create icephobic surfaces which reduce the formation and adhesion of ice on aircraft surfaces. Superhydrophobic surface textures which replicate surfaces from nature like the lotus leaf perform well in this way. In this talk, the use of short and ultrashort pulsed lasers is shown to represent a viable technology to impart alloys commonly used in the aerospace industry with various functions including icephobicity.

While cameras and sensors have invaded every inch of of digital lives, from mobiles, computers, and even our cars, it is now serving world changing industrial 4.0 solutions through robotics. This robotic revolution will have a major impact in the realm of mobility and good transportation. In fact it is a combinaison of sensing and computing together that will power this paradigm shift. This talk will give an overview of the market and technology implications.

This talk will focus on Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL)-based 3D Sensing systems, applications and implementations.

A rapidly evolving Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) technology is opening new possibilities and deploying into myriad applications today. With industry-standard housing dimensions, high reliability, and excellent performance over extended operational temperatures, VCSELs are ideal for a variety of 3D sensing applications in the consumer, industrial and automotive industries. Available in a broad range of wavelengths, output powers, and architectures customized for various application based on customer requirements, VCSELs are providing the path to the future. This presentation will cover how in today’s dynamic landscape, VCSELs are enabling new 3D sensing applications.

Spectral imaging has proved to be a key-enabling technology in the lab, which is leading to development of new products in the medical, agriculture, industrial, and space sectors. Consequently the technology is now logically entering in the phase of integration in uncontrolled environment and operational constrains of volume manufacturing e.g. each instrument within a series must have a predictable behaviour. In view of these challenges, imec has spent the past two years improving the hyperspectral imaging technology to cope with these higher constraints, not only at filter process level but also at camera level. In this industry talk, the audience will learn how filters deposition monitoring and system level tests to reduces the variability of data output between cameras, and finally how radiometric corrections at software level enable to robustly get reproductible results between different instruments, even when lighting conditions change e.g. outdoor.

This presentation will help familiarize end users, machine builders, and systems integrators with the world of AI in Machine Vision. The talk will touch on the advantages of using an Edge or Embedded Vision device, and how experts in the field can use existing devices and ecosystems. Now more than ever there is a drive to bring this capability not only to experts, but users new to the Machine Learning field. Reducing the complexity of the user experience enables these users to focus more on their expertise without dedicating hundreds of hours to a novel technology.