EDITORIAL COMMENT
Latest Issue
Winter 2021The end of an era
This year marks the 25th anniversary of
EuroPhotonics, a magazine billed on its debut in 1996 as a “product-oriented publication dedicated to covering the growing market of photonics with an all-European focus.”
At the time, the European Union was emerging, and the region was solidifying its reputation as a hotbed of photonics activity. Readers came to count on learning more about innovations in lasers, optics, fiber optics, and, in more recent years, quantum sensing and silicon photonics.
Early issues reveal a masthead that included contributing editors based in France, the U.K., Germany, and Eastern Europe, and a table of contents in four separate languages.
The times have changed.
In an age of global trade, geographic boundaries simply don’t mean what they once did. In a nod to this change, we’ve made the difficult decision to cease publishing
EuroPhotonics. Alas, we’ll continue to feature datelines from throughout the Continent in print and online in our flagship publication,
Photonics Spectra. And the “EPIC Insights” column, which offers a unique window into the European photonics industry, will continue to appear in
Photonics Spectra as well.
In this, our final issue, we’re featuring coverage on the expanded role that embedded cameras are playing in the vision industry. A lens, sensor, and interface are attached to a circuit board with the associated electronics. And these miniaturized cameras are finding their way into applications beyond inspection and measurement, onto the industrial floor and into security surveillance, agricultural monitoring, and medical diagnostics. Read about the work from some of the top companies in the industry
here.
Related to the subject of sensors, authors Alan Mullan and Aleks Marsh discuss the many factors involved in the choice of whether to use CCD or CMOS sensor technology for an entity’s imaging needs, based on parameters such as sensitivity, field of view, and speed. Learn more
here. And in this edition’s “EPIC Insights” column, the European Photonics Industry Consortium offers its take on sensing. The latest sensing technology offers expanded sensitivity and clarity in low-light settings, especially when capturing detail in wavelengths beyond the visible, such as in the NIR, SWIR, and UV. Read about it
here.
Enjoy the issue!
