Optics for Life, A Life for Optics
Photoniques is published by the French Physical Society. La Société Française de Physique est une association loi 1901 reconnue d’ utilité publique par décret du 15 janvier 1881 et déclarée en préfecture de Paris.
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Optics for Life, A Life for Optics
Copenhagen, 15 August 1932. Niels Bohr, one of the founding figures of quantum physics, steps onto the stage to deliver the opening lecture of a conference devoted to phototherapy. In his lecture, entitled Light and Life, he questions whether physics might help in understanding living systems. Among the audience sits Max Delbrück, who would eventually shift from physics to molecular biology, a choice that ultimately led him to the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded for his discoveries on viral replication and genetic structure. His trajectory illustrates how physics and the life sciences have much to offer one another. Light and life are intrinsically intertwined. Light ignites the emergence and growth of living organisms, and it provides an exceptional probe for investigating their inner mechanisms. In this issue, we explore the most advanced optical methods for imaging and addressing the living world and life sciences. This issue features three articles that address all-optical neurophysiology, real-time tissue diagnostics, and smart illumination schemes for 3D biological imaging. We are delighted to inaugurate here a new section, Perspectives, dedicated to forward-looking viewpoints on what photonics can bring. The inaugural article,
Editorial
NICOLAS BONOD Editor-in-Chief
Sailing to the Stars with Photonics, captures this spirit perfectly: envisioning high-power lasers propelling ultrathin reflective sails to significant fractions of the speed of light across the cosmos. The second contribution explores the very appealing field of photonic computing with fiber-optic solitons, while the third is devoted to quantum sensing, in resonance with the 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the first detection of gravitational waves, this issue features not one but two complementary articles on gravitational wave detectors. The first provides a complete introduction to kilometer-scale laser interferometers that can detect and triangulate the sources of gravitational-wave events occurring billions of lightyears away; the second focuses on the implementation of squeezing techniques for quantum noise reduction. All these topics illustrate how light opens pathways for exploring our world: from deciphering the intricate architectures and mechanisms of life to probing the most powerful events in the universe. Within the photonics community, we all stand together in this scientific and cultural adventure, placing light at the forefront of knowledge and progress: Optics for life, a life for optics.
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