Join us for a #WomenInOptics-focused Lunch & Learn at #SPIEOpticsPhotonics. Jess Wade will be moderating, with Natalie Stingelin, Laure Kayser, and Zan Paterson featured on the panel. Plus, the first 40 guests will get a boxed lunch! 🥪🥗 Event details here: https://bit.ly/4gWmekK

Congratulations to SPIE’s newest Fellows! 🎉 59 Members have been made Fellows, recognizing their contributions to #optics and #photonics through technical achievement, leadership, and service to the community. Meet the newest Fellows: https://bit.ly/4yYh0eK

Blinking upconversion nanoparticles enable < 1 nm super-resolution imaging #upconversion #optics #chemsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Spontaneous and indefinite blinking in upconverting nanoparticles for ångström-precision multicolour super-resolution imaging - Nature Nanotechnology

Compositionally engineered, spontaneously blinking upconverting nanoparticles enable multicolour super-resolution imaging with a single excitation source and achieve localization precision down to 0.6...

nature.com

A new “photonic multi-lane highway” carries multiple topologically-protected optical signals without the need for a bulky insulator. 🧪⚛️ ow.ly/w4um50ZtILt

'Photonic multi-lane highway' enjoys insulator-free topological protection – Physics World

New technology uses a photonic valley half-semimetal

ow.ly

Tomorrow, 5 August, is the last day to submit abstracts for #SPIEMedicalImaging! ⏳ Don't miss this opportunity to share your medical imaging work in Vancouver, B.C. Topics include physics, #radiology, #biomedical applications, ultrasound, & more. 💡 Browse the #CallForPapers: https://bit.ly/43KA8yt

"The privilege to work with amazing SPIE staff and volunteers... has been the highlight of my career." After 9 years as CEO of SPIE, Kent Rochford announced he will retire in February 2027. We are grateful for his commitment and lasting impact on SPIE. Thank you, Kent! spie.org/news/spie-ce...

How can photonics help create a more sustainable future? ♻️ Join us at the #SPIEOpticsPhotonics Sustainability Plenary with Pramod Reddy and Qiaoqiang Gan as they explore nanoscale heat transfer, energy conversion, thermal photonics, and more. Add this session to your agenda: https://bit.ly/44AISaW

Conference participation shouldn't have to compete with caregiving responsibilities. Family Care Grants help #SPIEMembers offset dependent care costs while attending SPIE conferences. Grants of up to $500 are available for eligible applicants. Learn more and apply: https://bit.ly/4fpfgDJ

Jannick Rolland, one of the #SPIEOpticsPhotonics Optical Engineering plenary speakers, discussed her upcoming talk with us: “Freeform Optics: Progress, Promise, and the Path Forward.” "I hope attendees come away with an appreciation for how far the field has progressed." 💡 https://bit.ly/4x930wV

Moving optical technologies from the lab to the real world

SPIE Optics + Photonics plenary speaker Jannick Rolland will discuss freeform optics offer design freedom

bit.ly

Join us at #SPIEMedicalImaging in Vancouver, B.C., to share your latest research in medical imaging! 💡⚕️ Topics covered include digital and computational #pathology, #radiology, biomedical applications, #physics, & more. Abstracts are due 5 August. View the #CallForPapers: https://bit.ly/43KA8yt

#JWST observations of LRDs in the news once again! Nice story on the Saguaro LRD (it has arms!), based on work led by our @stsci.edu postdoc Pierluigi Rinaldi. We'll be reobserving Saguaro with JWST in the coming year to learn more about it. science.nasa.gov/missions/web... 🔭

NASA Webb Explores Family Tree of Newly Discovered Distant Objects - NASA Science

Since their discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, little red dots (LRDs) have been the subject of great interest to astronomers.

science.nasa.gov

Leron Borsten and Shanti Pise see if it's possible to teach quantum teleportation to teenagers using a pictorial approach to quantum physics in just one week. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/can-a-16-y...

Can a 16-year-old really understand quantum teleportation? – Physics World

Leron Borsten and Shanti Pise report from a week-long event that sought to teach quantum physics to teenagers

physicsworld.com

Sae Woo Nam's pioneering work in superconducting single-photon detectors helped advance quantum optics and enable landmark quantum experiments. 💡 Read more about his legacy in #PhotonicsFocus: https://bit.ly/4hu591C

This is our last #WiOWednesday feature of 2026. 💡🥲 Today, meet Nassima Zeggaoui, Technical Manager at Siemens. She leads the creation of software solutions for new tech, bridging engineering, marketing, & sales. "I’m proud of my advocacy for girls in #STEM." 🔗 https://bit.ly/4foB3vd #WomenInSTEM

Congratulations to SPIE’s 79 new Senior Members! 👏 Recognized for their achievements, leadership, and service to the #optics and #photonics community, these members represent the innovation and expertise driving the field forward. Meet the 2026 inductees: https://bit.ly/4wEzIGw

Fast radio bursts last just milliseconds but can outshine an entire galaxy. 🌌 These mysterious signals are helping #astronomers map the universe and investigate one of astronomy's biggest unsolved mysteries. 📡 Learn more about these radio bursts in #PhotonicsFocus - https://bit.ly/44CC0tF

We met with Cory Boone, #SPIEOpticsPhotonics Optical Engineering Plenary speaker, ahead of his talk, "Embracing Social Media for Marketing, Outreach, and Career Advancement." "I've found [#optics and #photonics] to be a very positive and supportive industry." 💡 Read more: https://bit.ly/4wlmkae

Distilling science for social media

Cory Boone will discuss "Embracing social media for marketing, outreach, and career advancement” at SPIE Optics + Photonics

spie.org

A tiny wobble in a distant star led to the discovery of the first exoplanet. 🌑 Now, advances in #optics and #photonics are helping astronomers search for Earth-like worlds and signs of life beyond our solar system. 🌍🔭 Learn more in #PhotonicsFocus: https://bit.ly/4vuS8Za

Investing in #optics means investing in students. 💡 Monroe Community College's new Sydor Optics Advanced Technology Center will include the SPIE Optical Systems Lab, expanding hands-on training! We interviewed Alexis Vogt on the ripple effect of the $150K SPIE investment: https://bit.ly/4friDsj

Time is running out to submit your nomination for the 2027 #SPIE Society Awards! 🏆 This is your opportunity to recognize a colleague's impact in the #optics and #photonics community; nominations are due 31 July. 💡🎊 Submit your nomination today! https://bit.ly/4dIGNPC

"HyperLight, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, startup specializing in thin-film lithium niobate photonic integrated circuits, says it has closed a Series C round of equity finance worth $80 million." 💡💰 Read further in #OpticsOrg: https://bit.ly/4wtfijh

HyperLight to ramp thin-film lithium niobate output with $80M funding round | optics.org

Harvard spin-out says it has broad ecosystem support for scaling TFLN photonics.

optics.org

“This public-private partnership with SRI International will accelerate the development of America’s #quantum industrial base — the foundation upon which the quantum revolution is being built.” 💡⚛️ Learn more about the partnership between NIST and SRI at #OpticsOrg: https://bit.ly/3R2zuJP

NIST funding R&D center to drive U.S. advance of quantum technologies | optics.org

Will make initial investment of $20 million into “QMEC” being developed by SRI International.

optics.org

Haiqiu Yang, a researcher at OptiCardio, is our #WiOWednesday feature this week! 💡 In her role, Yang creates image-based surgical tools to treat irregular heart rhythms. This technology can improve procedure quality and clinical outcomes. Read her profile here: https://bit.ly/4bbmSqX #WomenInSTEM

New experiments show that “strange” metals (which conduct electricity relatively poorly) owe at least some of their peculiar properties to the quantum entanglement of their electrons, backing up previous theoretical findings. physicsworld.com/a/quantum-en...

Quantum entanglement explains why strange metals are so strange – Physics World

New measurements and a tool from quantum metrology provide new insights into metals with unusually high electrical resistance

physicsworld.com

New research from UChicago PME and Northwestern University shows a cleaner method to separate rare earth elements from each other, which could affect technology manufacturing. 🧪 Read more: pme.uchicago.edu/news-events/...

A cleaner route to purifying rare earth elements

Rare earth elements like lanthanum, neodymium, and dysprosium are used to build the electric motor in your car, the LED lights in your house, and the MRI machine at your doctor’s office.

pme.uchicago.edu

"Everyone in this room has some role to play, whether it's in detectors or systems engineering... We don't know which ones are going to turn up planets that are habitable and which ones may have life on them." 🔭 🎬 Fantastic plenary from Seager at #SPIEastro 2018 - watch it here: bit.ly/44HoHYY

Admirable Women@admirablewomen.bsky.social · 2w ago

World-renowned astrophysicist & planetary scientist Dr. Sara Seager is an "astronomical Indiana Jones." A professor at #MIT, she's a pioneer in the modern search for life outside our solar system, specializing in the detection/characterization of exoplanets. She was born #OTD in 1971. #WomenInSTEM

📣 Tracking cells through time – including divisions – is a core problem in live-imaging microscopy. We built HOCT, an edge-centric Transformer that hits state-of-the-art on the Cell Tracking Challenge without a pretrained image encoder. Work led by @jookuma.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2607.11754 🧪🔬💻

Join us on 28 July for the latest edition of the #SPIE Henry Poincaré Webinar Series with Peter Kraus (ARCNL). He will present a new approach to ultrafast nanoscopy using deactivated high-harmonic generation called HADES. Register for the webinar here: https://bit.ly/45k6zEw ⚛️💡

Researchers are developing new single-photon detectors to answer the age-old question: Are we alone? NASA's HWO + the proposed LIFE Mission will rely on ultrasensitive detectors to detect atmospheric signatures of life. 🔭 Read the article in #PhotonicsFocus: https://bit.ly/44rIewp #instrumentation

#SPIEMedicalImaging call for papers is open through 5 August 2026! 📒💡 Present your research on image processing, perception, physics, image-guided procedures, ultrasound, radiology, and more in Vancouver, B.C., in February 2027. 🩻 Click here to browse the #CallForPapers: https://bit.ly/43KA8yt