International Year of Light Blog


Light plays a central role in human activities. On the most fundamental level through
photosynthesis, light is necessary to the existence of life itself, and the many
applications of light have revolutionized society through medicine, communications,
entertainment and culture. Industries based on light are major economic drivers, and
light-based technologies directly respond to the needs of humankind by providing access to
information, promoting sustainable development, and increasing societal health and
well-being.

Luxury cars, lost golf balls and fried eggs: unusual excursions into the
world of photonics

“Why light?”

It’s a good question, and one that everyone working in photonics
has at one point found an answer to: what is it about this particular part of the
electromagnetic spectrum that proves so interesting and worthwhile to form the basis of a
career?

For me, admittedly in the early stages of such a career as I
grapple with the nonlinear optical properties of nanomaterials and attempt to exploit these
to develop better pulsed lasers for a PhD, it’s the sheer potential of light and light-based
technologies that fascinates me. This might seem a bold claim, and in itself insufficient to
tempt young scientists to the optical table and away from the seemingly-glamorous ‘city
jobs’ that so often beckon. However, it’s true, and to prove this I’ll briefly outline the
work experience projects I undertook as a student that convinced me – all optics-focussed,
but not optics as I’d previously known it.

My introduction to photonics came when I was randomly,
and very fortunately, assigned a school science project with a luxury car manufacturer,
exploring how to drive white LEDs to carefully control their colour. The LEDs, which form
part of the interior ‘mood lighting’, were designed to gradually turn on in a welcoming
manner as the driver entered the car, and to fade away on exit, wishing them farewell. LEDs
were also used to create ambient lighting of various hues to set the tone for the driver’s
journey. Cruising along the motorway at speed? Perhaps you’d like a crimson glow to excite
and energize. Or if driving the children home in the evening, maybe a warm orange hue will
help happiness remain throughout the long journey? This really was a fusion of art and
science to create the best possible user experience, highlighting that optical engineers
need to not only understand the physics of electrons and holes recombining to emit light,
but how this radiative recombination can influence human emotions (not to mention, their
tendency to put their hand into their wallet for luxury goods).

Luxury cars: there’s more photonics here than you’d think

From luxury items to everyday commodities, my next placement
with a laser manufacturing research group challenged me to find a laser-based alternative to
the common non-stick coating on frying pans: achieving fried eggs without the environmental
concerns or costs of chemical coatings! Specifically, laser texturing of stainless steel was
proposed to change how fluids interact with the surface. A focussed beam of high-power
nanosecond pulses scanned across metal in a periodic pattern can create a surface
microstructure of tiny micrometer-sized mountains and valleys, altering the surface energy.
This can change the tendency for fluids to wet a surface, that is, whether a droplet will
spread out and adhere to the surface or remain as a spherical droplet which can simply be
wiped off. By making a surface more hydrophobic or lyophobic (water- or oil-resistant) as a
result of laser texturing, it can arguably better resist stains and is more easily cleaned.
Optical science played a role in all parts of this, not only in understanding the
interaction of intense light and steel matter to modify the surface, but also in the
engineering of a reliable source of high power laser pulses.

Making better cookware? Intense laser light can texture materials
to change the surface properties

Finally, out of the frying pan and onto the golf course: my last
work experience project with a local university proposed an investigation into optical
methods to find lost golf balls in long grass. In America alone, it’s reported that 300
million balls are lost a year. Therefore, a device to retrieve these could have significant
commercial appeal for the less experienced (/less able) golfers. As humans, we rely on
visible light for our basic sense of sight to find and identify objects. But photonic
technologies can operate beyond this fairly narrow visible region of the spectrum and this
offers many new opportunities. One technique I explored was thermographic imaging using
infrared light: since grass transpires to cool itself slightly, compared to an inanimate
ball, lost items could potentially be detected by measuring this temperature difference. I
achieved limited success with this over a short distance, so while the product might not be
on the shelves of your local sports supplier anytime soon, the project did show that there’s
much more to photonics and other ways to use light than simply in the visible spectrum.

Lost golf balls in long grass: can photonics find what humans
can’t see?

Perhaps then, the best answer to my original question is in
fact, “why not light?” Photonics is a truly multidisciplinary field, impacting upon
every branch of science and engineering and affecting our daily lives so immensely that we
often take it all for granted. So my advice for any aspiring young scientists or engineers
out there would be to try photonics – there are so many companies and research groups out
there who could offer a fun work experience project and who knows what you’ll end up working
on: perhaps imaging cells to identify and treat cancer? Or creating more powerful lasers to
achieve nuclear fusion? Or maybe, just making better fried eggs.

 Note: All images were taken by the Author or from copyleft /royalty free
sources.

Citizen Science

Sometimes what we lose can be just as important as what
we gain. The loss of something that has influenced our culture for millennia can change
our culture’s perspective of the world around us. Yet if change happens slowly, we may
not realize we have lost anything. Case in point: what if a starry night sky had never
inspired Van Gogh to paint “Starry Night” or Holst to compose “The Planets” or
Shakespeare write sonnets that encompass so much astronomy.

Citizen-science is a rewardingly inclusive way to bring
awareness to the public on important issues like the disappearing starry night sky, its
cause and solutions. Citizen-science can also provide meaningful, hands-on, minds-on
“science process” experiences for the general public and students in particular. One such
program that does both is Globe at Night (www.globeatnight.org), an international campaign
to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by having people measure
night-sky brightness and submit observations from a computer or smart phone. Students can
use the data to monitor levels of light pollution around the world, as well as understand
light pollution’s effects on energy consumption, plants, wildlife, human health and our
ability to enjoy a starry night sky. Projects have compared Globe at Night data with
ground-truthing using meters for an energy audit as well as with data on birds, population
density, satellite data and trends over time.

Public involvement in research experiences like these make the
point that we have to be better stewards today and teach our children to be better stewards
for tomorrow. We have to learn to light more responsibly and that the solutions are simple
and feasible. To make these opportunities for research happen in the next year, we will need
more Globe at Night data. The IYL Cosmic Light thematic cornerstone will be a conduit to get
more Globe at Night data by creating inviting opportunities that entice the public to
participate in the citizen science program.

Globe at Night is
every month for 10-days a month in 2014 and 2015. The campaign started as once a year for
10-days a campaign and ran that way until three years ago when we held the campaign twice in
2011, four times in 2012 and five times in 2013. Altogether, participants have measured over
110,000 vetted data points from 115 different countries. A couple of papers have been
written in the last year verify the database’s validity for use in scientific research.

To entice the public to participate in Globe at Night during the
International Year of Light, each month will target an area of the world we know habitually
contributes during that time. Special concerns for how light pollution affects that area and
solutions will be featured on the Globe at Night website (www.globeatnight.org), through its
Facebook page, in its newsletter or in the 365DaysofAstronomy.org podcasts we do. Twice a
year we will have a special Dark Skies Awareness day, which will most likely coincide with
the global Flash Mob events in mid-March and mid-September, where the public will be invited
to take night sky brightness measurements en mass. The International Dark-Sky Week hosted by
the International Dark-Sky Association will be featured in April
(www.darksky.org/int-l-dark-sky-week-main). We will partner with The World at Night to host
for a sixth year the International Earth and Sky photo contest (www.TWANight.org/contest).
We will also hold a contest that involves taking Globe at Night data – a City of Lights
contest for the city with the most measurements.

Please join us!


The Author:

Connie is an
Associate Scientist at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) in Tucson, Arizona,
USA. For the past 14 years at NOAO, she has enjoyed managing several education outreach
programs for the public, students and teachers on hands-on general astronomy, dark
skies preservation, optics and solar research. A highlight of her job is directing the
popular international light pollution citizen-science campaign, Globe at Night
(www.globeatnight.org). To help make a difference, she is an officer on the Boards of
Directors (BOD) for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the BOD of the International
Dark-Sky Association (IDA), and the International Astronomical Union’s commission on light
pollution, as well as manages the Dark Skies Awareness programs for Astronomers Without
Borders’ “Global Astronomy Month”. For her efforts in bringing dark skies awareness to the
public, the IDA awarded her their Hoag-Robinson award. Her amazing astronomer-husband,
daughter (19), son (16) and cat (7) thankfully tolerate her interest in the dark side of
astronomy.

Finland: It Takes Darkness to Make Light Visible

Finland is one of the luckiest countries in the world when it comes to light. And I’m not
just talking about our Midnight Sun, when the Sun will not go behind the horizon for a long
time in the northern parts of the country, like Lapland, and when it’s possible to read
through the night without any artificial lighting even in the southern parts of our country.

Finland Lake

Finland: The land of a thousand lakes. Or actually 187 888 lakes.
Photo credit: Pasi Vahimaa

I’m also talking about the long dark winter period when the night in the north lasts for
weeks. That’s when the stars shine and make the snow glitter. Darkness and silence. That is
an experience you cannot have everywhere. We really can find places where light pollution is
something totally unknown.

The darkness also gives a unique possibility to make light visible. That is why we understand
the importance of light from a Nordic point-of-view, which is completely different from any
other nations’. We understand light in a way that is totally impossible to understand in
most places in the world. We really understand what it could be like if you don’t have
light. And that is also why we like to celebrate the International Year of Light.

Finland is a small country. Only about 5 million people. This means that it makes sense to
have extensive collaboration across the country – also in research into light. We know all
photonics people in our country, including researchers in universities and in photonics
companies. In our Finnish Photonics Society, Photonics Finland (www.photonics.fi), we have
only a few hundred members. This enables close collaboration across the country. And we
understand that we need it. Even the way we have gathered the National Committee for IYL2015
reflects this – there are no borders that we cannot cross to find someone who is somehow
connected to light.

In 2015, the main photonics event in Finland will be the Nordic Optics and Photonics Days in
Joensuu. The event will host researchers from universities and companies from Finland and
the other Nordic countries, as well as photonics students. In addition to the scientific
programme, we also try to include something that makes light to be visible to a more general
audience. We consider this very important. Fortunately, IYL2015 once again reminds us about
the importance of this.

But we will not stop at universities. Year after year, we have done well in “PISA” – the
evaluation of the school systems of various countries. We are proud of our success and we
want to continuously develop our schools.

The International Year of Light gives a beautiful opportunity for this kind of development,
because we now have a good reason to do things across traditional subject boundaries. To use
light to connect physics, chemistry, and biology. And not to forget the arts. The Finnish
Association for Teachers of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Informatics, MAOL
(www.maol.fi), has a plan to organise a contest for all school children to show their ideas
about the importance of light. Not just in physics, but by combining subjects, as it is
nowadays becoming a guideline in our school system.

I am personally looking forward to seeing the results. I mean, I am old and have my
old-fashioned views of light. Maybe kids can wake me up and make me see new colours.

Furthermore, the theme for the 2015 edition of SciFest, an annual science festival in Joensuu
(www.scifest.fi), will be ”Power of Light”. This festival brings together thousands of
school kids to play in different workshops where science and mathematics are visible. This
theme can be really something that almost all workshops can easily take into an account when
they plan their activities.

To us who are working in science, this event gives a possibility to tell children why science
is worth studying. In Finland, we have a challenge to attract enough new students to
science. Many students would rather study medical sciences or teacher education, since those
fields allow them to do something that benefits mankind. The International Year of Light now
gives us tools to convince students that they can do the same in science. I believe that
this helps especially girls to see science as something more interesting than they are used
to seeing it in our country.

Also LUMA Center Finland (www.luma.fi), the umbrella under which centres of mathematics and
science in various universities collaborate, has taken IYL2015 on their agenda. This means
that in Finland, the International Year of Light will be implemented in education from the
first class in the elementary school to PhD education. And not as individual actions, but in
collaboration between all players.

The long, dark time we have here in Finland also gives us excellent possibilities to make
light art. Especially in the past few years, we have seized this unique opportunity that it
takes dark before you can see light. Nowadays, we have several light art events around
Finland, like Lux Helsinki (www.luxhelsinki.fi), Aurora Carealis (www.auroracarealis.com)
and Tampere Illuminations (www.valoviikot.fi). Also these events will be in a more visible
role in 2015.

Finland tower

Näsinneula tower (167 m) illuminated in Tampere. Photo credit:
Kari Kola (www.valoparta.com)

Since we are in Finland, we cannot avoid the Nordic Lights. Even though they are most common
in northern Finland, occasionally one can see them also in southern Finland. We wish that
the Sun will also celebrate IYL2015 with us, and give us nice showers of particles to glow
here. So, if you visit here, don’t forget to look up every now and then. Unfortunately, our
National Committee cannot at the moment give an exact schedule for these events.


The Author:

Pasi is the chairman of the National IYL2015
Committee in Finland. He is also the Scientific Director of the Institute of Photonics at
the University of Eastern Finland (www.uef.fi/photonics). He has done research in photonics,
especially in the theoretical work on diffractive optics and optical coherence. Nowadays,
his research activities also include biophotonics.

The Healing Power of Light: Blue Light Cures Neonatal Jaundice

From newborns to the elderly, people around the world are treated everyday using technology
rooted in optics and photonics.

By harnessing the power of light to understand and heal disease, we are able to continue to
develop new ways to improve people’s lives. In this chapter of The Healing Power of
Light
, we focus on neonatal jaundice as a simple case of how light can help us to
see and treat disease in the most vulnerable infants.

Continue reading

Shining Light onto the Field of Photonics

The IEEE Photonics Society is excited to be a founding partner of the
International Year of Light (IYL2015) to support the IYL2015 mission of raising awareness of
the importance of light-based technologies in improving our quality of life in aspects such
as health, communications, and the environment.

IYL2015 also recognizes the history of light in the universe. 2015 is of particular
historical significance for IPS since it commemorates the 50th anniversary of the
creation of the Quantum Electronics Council which would eventually become the IEEE Photonics
Society.  Continue reading

Lasers and Leaves

International Year of Light 2015

Looking back, my career path was not determined by some grand plan, but rather by the beauty
of the light from an argon ion laser in our Applied Physics Department. It wasn’t the
science that the laser was bought for, Raman spectroscopy, or an understanding of how the
laser would change the world, that drew me.

At the time I was soon to graduate with a physics degree – the first in my family history to
get a science degree – and was interviewing with a local branch of IBM where my love of
mathematics might give me an edge and where I might find stimulating work in Northern
Ireland. But fate intervened and I was seduced by the light, by the pure intense green beam,
and lasers became my thing. Mentioning lasers also gave some sort of defense against the
many enquiries from caring relatives on when was I going to get a real job.

Continue reading

The World’s Only Light Art Museum Grants the International Light Art
Award 2015

In the German Ruhr area, close to Düsseldorf and Dortmund, one finds the world’s first and
only museum specialized in presenting light art.

The Centre for International Light Art in the city of Unna resides in the cooling
and storage cellars of the former Linden brewery, some 33 feet below ground, and it is here
where the most important international compositions of light art are brought together. Every
single light art installation was specifically created for the museum, and wandering through
the labyrinth-like vaulted rooms one encounters works by James Turrell, Christian Boltanski,
Ólafur Eliasson, Rebecca Horn, Joseph Kosuth, Mario Merz, Francois Morellet, Keith Sonnier
and many more.

Continue reading

International Year of Light Celebration Japan

As the International Year of Light draws closer upon the horizon, Japan is busy planning
their involvement in this once-only international event.

From committees to initiatives, we hope to bring knowledge and development to Japan
surrounding the central topic of light and light-based technologies. As the node for Japan,
I’m looking forward to encouraging national participation in the initiative.

Continue reading

Duke of York Declared IYL2015 Patron

Well, we have our first big piece of news to announce about IYL2015 in the UK – The Duke of
York has agreed to become our patron! The Duke of York is Prince Andrew, son of Queen
Elizabeth II and a longstanding supporter of UK science and technology.

This is really great news for us. We can be sure of getting some sound and sensible advice
from the Duke about the kind of activities we are planning for IYL2015, based on his own
wide experience. We hope he will get involved in a number of events around the UK during the
Year. And his support will undoubtedly raise the profile of the Year in the media, and with
all the other stakeholders that we hope will participate in IYL2015.

Continue reading