Last week PADT attended the Arizona Photonics Days which happens every year before SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco (one of the largest optical conferences in the world). Engineers and companies from all over the world stop by Tucson to give technical and company presentations before making their way to Photonics West. PADT is a sponsor of the event every year, and our co-owner, Eric Miller, presented on PADT’s capabilities.
Two and a Half Days Full of Optics and Photonics
The conference was split into five technical sessions: Biomedical Technology, Sensing and Metrology, Astronomy, Laser Technology, and Quantum Technology. My favorite every year is the Astronomy session—not just because of my Astronomy background! During the session we got to learn how the MagAO-X adaptive optics system is being used to look for life on other planets, the work being done by Professor Daewook Kim and his team making scalable space telescope technology, and other intriguing projects currently being done to understand the beginning of the universe. And this year we had a special treat with Speos Application Engineer, Noah Hamstra, presenting on Stray Light Analysis in Speos using a Ritchey-Chretien Telescope design during the astronomy session as well.
Overall, the conference is a great opportunity to learn about the optical community and advancements being made in the industry. With this being my 3rd year attending, I have made some friends that I get to catch up with during the networking events and make new friends every year!
I usually only stay for the first two days, but this year I had to stay for the Large Mirror Lab tour at the University of Arizona (UofA) on day 3. This was my first time touring the facility and I was in awe. Currently, the 7 segmented mirrors that make up the Giant Magellan Telescope are being built in the lab. It takes 6 years to make each 8.4-meter mirror! The mirrors are made from a honeycomb structure to reduce the overall weight of the system. We learn about the hollow honeycomb structure of these large mirrors in our Optomechanical courses, but getting to see them first-hand was something else.
We also got a tour of the new Grand Challenges Research Building at UofA. The building is split into 6 floors consisting of labs and research offices. We toured the top floor and the fourth floor. The top floor is dedicated to the New Frontiers of Sound research, where the study of phononics is taking place to advance data processing, telecommunications, and environmental sensing with sound.
The fourth floor hosts the Center for Quantum Networks, and research students walked us through their projects that are pushing the possibilities of quantum networking into the photonic integrated circuit level. I don’t pretend to know how quantum computing works, but a fun fact from the Grand Challenges Research Building states that quantum networking relies on the principles of entanglement. Entanglement describes how two particles can become linked, and the state of one particle instantly influences the state of the other, no matter the distance between the two particles.
The Grand Research building has a great view of the mountains and the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium from the 6th floor.
PADT had a great time at the conference and urge you to attend Arizona Photonics Days next year to meet the engineers and researchers that are integrating optics and photonics at extremely large and small scales!
PADT enjoys this event because it lets our experts meet with and talk to other photonics and optics. If you are interested in learning more about Ansys Optics and Photonics solutions, or want to speak with one of our engineers about outsourcing your simulation or opto-mechanical design, contact us.
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