Working with organisations

The PLG aims to work closely with those organisations or institutions involved to share information with ease and to influence policy development at regional, national and international levels. It will promote photonics to interested parties and the public in general.

The PLG is a relatively small but influential body. It aims to set the strategic direction for photonics in the UK and monitors whatever plans are put in place. It seeks to initiate effective work streams and provide coherence, momentum and efficacy to new initiatives that bring photonics businesses, training and research and development together.

It does not replace or displace existing bodies within the photonics community, but coordinates them in an effective manner.

Painting a bright future

The first recommendation of the Photonics Strategy Group/ BERR (DTI) report Painting a bright future was to establish a strategic body to act as the UK voice for photonics and to provide strategic direction to all UK photonics stakeholders.

The Photonics Leadership Group (PLG) was set up to serve this vital need and exists to harness the potential of photonics in the UK, and to make it central to the country’s innovation strategy. 

Background

Mankind’s mastery of light began many millennia ago with the control of fire. Since then, huge achievements have been made in both the understanding of light and applying this understanding for the improvement of our lives.
During the late 20th century, a new field of study and enterprise was created: photonics. Photonics has emerged from a number of disciplines to enable the mastery of the photon: optics, material science, electrical engineering, nanotechnology, physics, chemistry and electronics. The combination of light and electronics has created disruptive technologies that are being applied in the 21st century.

Facts

Photons have properties that set them apart from anything else we encounter in our lives:

• Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
• Photons unlike electrons have no weight and create no resistance.
• Focussed light generated by lasers constitutes the highest concentration of energy known on earth.
• One photon pulse can be as short as one millionth of a billionth of a second, the dimension of time in which molecular and atomic reactions take place.
• Light beams are well suited not only to help us see, but also to hold and manipulate atoms.
• As light acts virtually contact-free; it can be used as a tool even under extreme conditions.

Definition

Light is made up of photons. Photonics is the science of harnessing light. Photonics encompasses the generation, transmission, detection, management, guidance, manipulation and application of light and other forms of radiant energy.

• PHOTON: A unit of retinal illumination, equal to the amount of light that reaches the retina through 1 square millimetre of pupil area from a surface having a brightness of 1 candela per square meter.
• PHOTONICS: The study or application of electromagnetic energy whose basic unit is the photon, incorporating optics, laser technology, electrical engineering, materials science, and information storage and processing.
• PHOTO-ELECTRON: An electron released or ejected from a substance by photoelectric effect.
• ELECTRON: A stable subatomic particle in the lepton family having a rest mass of 9.1066 × 10-28 grams and a unit negative electric charge of approximately 1.602 × 10-19 coulombs
• ELECTRONICS: The branch of physics that deals with the emission and the effects of electrons. OPTO: Optical.
• OPTICAL: Of or relating to or involving light or optics.
• OPTICS: The branch of physics that deals with light and vision, chiefly the generation, propagation, and detection of electromagnetic radiation having wavelengths greater than x-rays and shorter than microwaves.
• OPTO-ELECTRONICS: The branch of physics that deals with the inter-conversion of electricity and light.
• BIO-PHOTONICS: Is the combination of biology and photonics. And it has become the established general term for all techniques that deal with the interaction between biological items and photons. This refers to emission, detection, absorption, reflection, modification, and creation of radiation from biomolecular, cells, tissues, organisms and biomaterials. Areas of application include life sciences and healthcare.