Bending Light, Shaping the Future: Inside Arizona's Optics Ecosystem - EP65

And you brought up a couple of terms that those of us who aren't in engineering or Don't remember the physics class might need some refresher on.

So Kate, I know you get to do this a lot.

So I'm going to go to you to kind of just kind of explain, give us the optics 101.

What is optics and photonics, right? And so sometimes even I get those two confused.

Yeah, I mean, they all lump together when it's got their own specific definition.

But broadly, optics and photonics is the science and engineering of light and light-based technologies.

So Bob mentioned that a lot of people think of telescopes.

I also think a lot of people think of eyeglasses.

They hear the opti prefix and they think glasses, which is adjacent, but we're not...

We're not really in the medical field, so we deal with light-based technologies.

And you already heard in the introduction some of the big things that are done with light in modern technology today, the internet.

The current internet is fueled by and runs on fiber optics, and that's very much optics and light-based technology.

And so any type of system that you interact with that uses light to fundamentally power it would fall under optics and photonics.

There's some nuances between what is classical optics versus photonics that might be a little more electronics or system based, but that's all kind of got that fundamental definition.

And it's really used to power a lot of our systems.

current lifestyle.

So anything that requires a light and imaging that you're not doing with your eyes requires optics based technology.

So any sort of camera that you use, any sort of, I think Michael, before he popped on was pointing out his, his mouse that has light, light based, uh, light based imaging, um, you know, that type of thing.

Uh, that's, that's all your optics and, um, biomedical optics is a huge thing.

And, and, uh, that using light based, uh, technologies to do non-invasive type of procedures.

So I think there's a lot of sectors we'll talk about today.

But if you see something running on light rather than electrons, which is what the previous technology, that's what I like to tell everybody.

If you know dial-up internet, That was electron-based.

And if you compare that to fiber optics, I think you can make an argument for light-based over electron-based technologies.

So that's the very basics.

And you brought up a couple of terms that those of us who aren't in engineering or Don't remember the physics class might need some refresher on.

So Kate, I know you get to do this a lot.

So I'm going to go to you to kind of just kind of explain, give us the optics 101.

What is optics and photonics, right? And so sometimes even I get those two confused.

Yeah, I mean, they all lump together when it's got their own specific definition.

But broadly, optics and photonics is the science and engineering of light and light-based technologies.

So Bob mentioned that a lot of people think of telescopes.

I also think a lot of people think of eyeglasses.

They hear the opti prefix and they think glasses, which is adjacent, but we're not...

We're not really in the medical field, so we deal with light-based technologies.

And you already heard in the introduction some of the big things that are done with light in modern technology today, the internet.

The current internet is fueled by and runs on fiber optics, and that's very much optics and light-based technology.

And so any type of system that you interact with that uses light to fundamentally power it would fall under optics and photonics.

There's some nuances between what is classical optics versus photonics that might be a little more electronics or system based, but that's all kind of got that fundamental definition.

And it's really used to power a lot of our systems.

current lifestyle.

So anything that requires a light and imaging that you're not doing with your eyes requires optics based technology.

So any sort of camera that you use, any sort of, I think Michael, before he popped on was pointing out his, his mouse that has light, light based, uh, light based imaging, um, you know, that type of thing.

Uh, that's, that's all your optics and, um, biomedical optics is a huge thing.

And, and, uh, that using light based, uh, technologies to do non-invasive type of procedures.

So I think there's a lot of sectors we'll talk about today.

But if you see something running on light rather than electrons, which is what the previous technology, that's what I like to tell everybody.

If you know dial-up internet, That was electron-based.

And if you compare that to fiber optics, I think you can make an argument for light-based over electron-based technologies.

So that's the very basics.