A better way of measuring reflectance

Yesterday Andrew Sutherland attended EDRMedeso's event "Meet the Experts" to discuss and learn more about optical and engineering simulation tools.

Simulations are great tools for exploring wide parameter spaces or in early development processes. The democratisation of these tools by AI developers is incredibly exciting for the insights it can add to projects or ideas. It was great to meet with other engineers and discuss a new era of engineering computation and workflows.Take a look at one of our case studies to see how we include simulations in our work.

Yesterday, LumOptica took on ‘Race across the World - Bristol’, it was a brilliant day of competition, riddles and laughter. Taking time out like this is key to continuing to build a strong and connected team especially ahead of some exciting projects we have lined up!

Thank you to QinetiQ for facilitating our trials via the Test & Evaluation Innovation Gateway. SMEs are an essential part of the UK defence supply chain and given the current emphasis on innovation at pace, it is crucial that they are not handicapped by the cost of high-quality testing. This has accelerated the development of our novel laser-based CUAS technology.

We feel fortunate to be based in Bristol for many reasons, one of which is the annual Bristol Light Festival. Our Senior Optical Research Engineer, George Chappell took this delightful photo of the famous Bristol Balloons in front of Bristol Cathedral.

Light can be used to produce magical installations like this. At LumOptica we harness light by exploiting optical innovations and developing cutting-edge technologies.

Cheers to 11 years of bright ideas and even brighter people. Happy Birthday LumOptica!

Did you know...

… Lasers were originally called optical masers. "What's a maser?" you ask...

Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation - MASER. Masers operated only at microwave wavelengths and were highly specialised devices with limited practical use. However, the underlying principle was revolutionary and has been expanded to over a thousand wavelengths of the radiation spectrum.

Masers are still used today in applications requiring ultra-low noise and frequency stability, such as atomic clocks and deep-space communication.

Together, the LumOptica team brings over 100 years of combined experience in optics and laser technology, making us trusted experts in our field. Take a look at this case study where we designed a bespoke lab-based system to meet our customer’s requirement to measure absolute reflectance of high reflectivity mirrors as part of their production quality control process. There was nothing commercially available which would provide their required performance specification, so we were able to produce a design for them which was practicable, user-friendly and crucially, met the target specification.

The LumOptica bake off has been going for 4 years now and it has truly become our favourite tradition. This year the entries ranged from much loved classics to innovative Christmas creations, the standard was high and the competition fierce! Most importantly, it gave the team a much-needed energy boost during a very busy month.

The LumOptica office and labs have been filled with a hive of activity of late, and with our growing team it was the perfect time to go out and have a festive celebration together.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to our staff, customers and suppliers, we very much look forward to what 2026 has in store for us.

We are delighted to welcome Andrew Sutherland who has joined LumOptica as a Senior Optical Research Engineer.

"My background is in ultrafast laser science, compact particle accelerators and novel laser-based diagnostics gained through a PhD at the University of Strathclyde as well as research positions at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, CERN, Strathclyde and Heinrich Heine University.