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Photonics

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Photonics is the science and technology of generating and controlling photons, particularly in the visible and near infra-red light spectrum. Photonics as a science is closely related to quantum optics and optoelectronics with somewhat unclear boundaries. Quantum optics frequently implies fundamental research, while photonics often refers to more application-related research. The term optoelectronics, which by construction is a somewhat narrower field than photonics dealing only with active elements involving an electrical interaction, nonetheless frequently is used to include passive photonic elements as well.

The term photonics may, but doesn't always, imply a goal of establishing an electronics of photons instead of electrons. Polaritonics differs with photonics in that the fundamental information carrier is a phonon-polariton, which is an admixture of photons and phonons, and operates in the range of frequencies from 300 gigahertz to approximately 10 terahertz. Photonics typically operates at frequencies on the order of hundreds of terahertz.

Bundle of photons dispersed by a prism
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Bundle of photons dispersed by a prism

The field of photonics has a strong interest in optical communication. The science and applications of photonics are usually based on laser light.

Contents

Overview of photonics research

The science of photonics includes the emission, transmission, amplification, detection, modulation, and switching of light. Photonic devices include optoelectronic devices such as lasers and photodetectors, as well as optical fiber, photonic crystals, planar waveguides and other passive optical elements.

Applications of photonics include light detection, telecommunications, information processing, illumination, metrology, spectroscopy, holography, medicine (surgery, vision correction, endoscopy, health monitoring), laser material processing, visual art, biophotonics, agriculture, robotics, and defense.

History of photonics

Photonics as a field really began in 1960, with the invention of the laser, followed in the 1970s by the development of optical fibers as a medium for transmitting information using light beams, and the Erbium-doped fiber amplifier. These inventions formed the basis for the telecommunications revolution of the late 20th Century, and provided the infrastructure for the Internet.

Photonics as a field was largely focused on communications, until the dot-com crash circa 2001. However, photonics covers a huge range of science and technology applications, including: laser manufacturing, biological and chemical sensing, medical diagnostics and therapy, display technology, and optical computing. Various non-telecom photonics applications exhibit a strong growth particularly since the dot-com crash, partly because many companies have been looking for new application areas quite successfully. A huge further growth of photonics can be expected for the case that the current development of silicon photonics will be successful.

Applications of Photonics

Sources

See also

Wiktionary

External links

 

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