Another brilliant Christmas meal with the team, this time hosted by Harvey Nichols.

Such a great night, we only remembered to take the photo at the last minute with those that were left!

Last week Nathan Roche had the opportunity to give a keynote presentation on some of our work in ultrashort pulse propagation modelling at COMSOL Day: Optics & Photonics!

View the event session recordings here: https://www.comsol.com/video/presentations-from-comsol-day-optics-and-photonics-11-26-2024.

Looking forward to LumOptica’s Nathan Roche speaking at this event.

Just an orange laser short of a full Halloween colour scheme in the lab this week! Unfortunately, pumpkin carving is out of scope for this internal research project, but if you’re finding the development of laser systems a spooky prospect, why not see if we can help?

Multimode fibres are often not used for propagating coherent light when the output spatial mode quality is of upmost importance. Since the propagation constant and intensity profile differs for each mode, the coherent superposition of modes results in a highly structured output, even if light was coupled into a single mode at the entrance of the fibre, due to mode coupling. We have demonstrated that by adaptively shaping the wavefront of the incident light at the Fourier plane of the fibre input face, we can significantly improve the free-space mode quality at the Fourier plane of the fibre output by applying a suitable optimisation algorithm and optimisation metric.

We always request feedback from our customers to help us continually improve. Here are some comments following a recent project for one of our major UK customers.

Delighted to be part of the industry advisory board for the recently started “Energy Transfer Technologies Skills and Training Hub”. Looking forward to working with our many industrial and academic partners to help train the next generation of leaders in this exciting and timely area.

Optical design generally involves reducing aberrations in order to capture ‘optimised’ images, but beautiful photographic effects such as “swirly-bokeh” are all thanks to such ‘errors’ as astigmatism and defocussing!

Did you know LumOptica offers optical design, simulation and optimisation using Zemax OpticStudio, whether you want to image the world, or send light into it.

Sometimes, it’s good to take a break from the amplifiers, optical fibres and breadboard laser systems, and instead take some pictures of some cool lab work! These pictures are from our recent experimental work on our DASA-funded Smart Fibre Lasers project.

It was a pleasure to visit the local primary school The Tynings, to help kick off their STEM week by demonstrating some exciting physics experiments. The children were a joy to work with and we had plenty of volunteers and interesting questions. We are still trying to work out how many potatoes it would take to fuel an aeroplane, answers on a postcard!

It feels appropriate on the International Day of Light to share a picture of some research we’ve undertaken this week with optical fibre – a photonic technology which has truly changed the world. And we even had light from the sun to make it all the more enjoyable!

For today, the lab coats and goggles were set aside as we enjoyed our LumOptica Away Day at Go Ape, Mallards Pike. Great adventure and teamwork in a beautiful setting

Where did those nine years go?! Celebrating our ninth anniversary with tea and cake.

Adam Wyatt enjoyed an informative workshop at University of Oxford on Free-Space Optical (FSO) Comms to discuss the challenges that need to be solved to make it a reality.

Exciting to be a part of the KTN Photonics for Space event at the National Space Centre today! Bringing photonics and space communities together to collaborate on the next generation of space-based activities.

An excellent day presenting and networking at Defence and Security Accelerator’s Making Science Fiction a Reality Demo Day!

Looking forward to experimenting with some metalwork we have recently received for one of our current projects, another step forward in a large programme of work!

Over the last couple of years, our team has been growing, bringing with it fresh ideas, increasing our overall skillset and building on our close-knit team.

Thank you to South Gloucestershire Council for the active travel grant that LumOptica was awarded to allow us to purchase an electric bike. The e-bike is being used as a pool bike which allows staff to ‘hire’ the bike for the purpose of commuting to and from work and other non-business journeys. The objective is to reduce single occupancy car journeys, gain numerous health benefits as well as reducing the number of cars in the car park. Here is our pool bike co-ordinator George Chappell on our local cycle path.

A great way to end an exciting year at LumOptica celebrating at The Pony, Chew Magna. Having expanded our team, increased our skillset, gained new customers and delivered several successful projects, we are very much looking forward to what we have in store for 2024. Merry Christmas to all!

Continuing our newly found tradition, the festivities are in full swing at LumOptica with our 2023 Christmas Bake Off! The competition is rife, the sugar is in abundance, the winner has been announced and the only thing left to do is start preparing for next year!

There was much press attention given to the lunar halo at the weekend. But we spotted solar “Sun dogs” at nearby Portishead. This is another type of halo, also formed from refraction by aligned ice crystals in the atmosphere.

Pleased to announce the continuation of our JOSCAR registration!

JOSCAR is a collaborative tool used by the aerospace, defence and security industry to act as a single repository for pre-qualification and compliance information. Using JOSCAR can determine if a supplier is “fit for business”.

We are very excited to welcome Adam to the team, taking up the position of Lead Optical Engineer/Physicist.

“I am an optical scientist with over two decades experience in the realm of ultrafast optics, high power lasers and attoscience. Graduating with a first-class MSci in Physics from Imperial College in 2003, I completed a DPhil in 2007 and another 6 years working as a post-doctoral research associate in atomic and laser physics at the University of Oxford. Following on with a decade at the Central Laser Facility, I worked on a multitude of facility upgrades for Vulcan and Artemis, delivering experimental capabilities to UK and international academics.

Using a broad skillset that includes adaptive optics and pulse shaping, high harmonic generation, nonlinear optics, coherent diffraction imaging, optical design, numerical modelling, scientific computing, data analysis and hardware control, my passion is in computational optics: combining computational algorithms with optical setups to solve problems that are difficult to achieve using one method alone.

In my spare time, I like to play modern board games, cycling, skiing and touch rugby.”

Thrilled to have you onboard, Adam!

We are delighted to have been awarded £160k funding from the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) to support the development of our novel “Smart Fibre Laser” technology. Very excited to see what possibilities it will bring.

A recent highlight for LumOptica as Craig and George attended the Security + Defence conference at SPIE Sensors + Imaging Europe, 2023 in Amsterdam. Craig also presented a paper (12739-6) on “Filament-mediated disruption of lasers”, describing experimental developments in using one laser beam to disrupt the path of another. The paper will soon be available here

Our team is growing once again with the arrival of George who is joining us as an Optical Research Engineer.

“My interest in photonics and optics started whilst completing my MPhys degree at the University of Bath. The wide range of physics and hands on lab work used in the development of laser systems motivated me to undertake a PhD within the Advanced Lasers Group at The Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde. During my PhD I worked on the development of novel wavelength vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs), focusing on using the novel, wide bandgap, ZnCdMgSe-on-InP material to develop semiconductor quantum well gain structures. My PhD work covered the semiconductor microfabrication of the ZnCdMgSe material system, numerical modelling of the gain structures and building proof-of-concept breadboard laser systems. Following my PhD, I undertook a one-year postdoctoral position, funded by the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing, where I worked on the development of ultranarrow linewidth, reduced SWAP-C, InGaN-diode-pumped VECSELs for strontium optical clock applications.

In my spare time I enjoy climbing and walking and so I am looking forward to exploring the Bristol area. I am looking forward to applying my laser development skills to exciting projects in my new role as an Optical Research Engineer at LumOptica.”

Welcome George!

We were delighted to be able to share some of our recent research on laser filamentation at the recent Directed Energy Professional Society (DEPS) UK/US Workshop at Shrivenham, UK on 21st July. Our CEO presented some surprising and exciting results, exploring the effects of filaments on the propagation of other lasers.

This week, Nathan, our Optical Research Engineer has jetted off to the beautiful island of Crete to attend the much-anticipated COFIL 2022 conference. COFIL brings together scientists working in the field of ultrashort and intense laser filamentation and its applications. The conference also attracts scientists from other fields interested in discussing the present status and future perspectives of this topic. Here at LumOptica, we are excited to grab this opportunity to find out the latest developments in modelling and experiment as well as to speak to leading experts in the area. We are keen to take the knowledge gained from attending the event and using it to benefit our current and future projects.

You can find a link to the conference here: https://cofil2022.org/

Looking forward to hearing more from Nathan about the event (and the food!) on his return next week.

We are thrilled to welcome Natalie to the team as our new Project Manager. Natalie brings a wealth of experience from the IT Sector and we look forward to her working with us on the next phase of LumOptica’s growth:

“I have over 10 years’ experience of successfully delivering multiple projects of varying sizes, complexities and budgets in the highly pressurised and fast paced IT sector. The types of projects I have delivered include office IT mobilisations, software upgrades, Facilities Management API system integrations, implementation of H&S SaaS solutions and the delivery of a company wide e-learning application to name but a few. I have experience in the full project management lifecycle with particular expertise in the discovery phase of the project and the identification, documentation and management of risks and issues.

I’m excited to be joining LumOptica in the newly appointed part time Project Manager role, I’m very much looking forward to getting stuck in and taking on this new challenge!

In my spare time, I’m very much running around after my young daughters and enjoy getting out and trying Bristol’s multitude of restaurants.”

Welcome on board Natalie!

The team is growing with the addition of our newest Optical Research Engineer, Sanna Al-Abdally.

“Following the completion of my BSc in Physics at the University of Bristol, I pursued an MSc in Physics with Quantum Dynamics at Imperial College London, where I discovered my passion for optics and photonics. Having worked on the design, testing and verification of a range of quantum systems that are used in applications such as quantum imaging, quantum computation, sensing and communication, I have developed my experimental techniques and modelling skills in Python and Matlab. I am extremely excited to kick start my career in the field, and I look forward to joining the team at LumOptica!”

Glad you’ve joined us, Sanna – welcome!

We are delighted to welcome our latest Optical Research Engineer, Nathan Roche.

“Following completion of an MPhys degree at the University of Liverpool, where I obtained a First in Physics, I spent two years as a production engineer with a high-spec laser manufacturer. Since then I have been working towards a PhD in RF design of a novel medical particle accelerator, using both analytical and numerical methods as part of a multidisciplinary team. I am now looking forward to my return to the field of photonics and optics with LumOptica, and the opportunity to work on interesting projects at the sharp edge of innovation.”

Glad to have you with us, Nathan!

We are thrilled to announce that we will be supporting Raytheon UK in the delivery of a High Energy Laser directed energy system for test & evaluation by the British Army.

The full announcement (which can be found here) states “A high-energy laser demonstrator will be installed by the Raytheon UK team on one of the MOD’s Wolfhound land vehicles for a period of comprehensive user experimentation. The experimentation provides an opportunity to see how HELWS could enhance UK capabilities and understanding in high-energy laser weapons, supporting UK’s ambitions to remain an as innovative leader science and technology.”

We look forward to participating in the maturation of this game-changing capability and applying our extensive expertise in this exciting technology.

An exciting day as we welcome Adam Wishart as an Optical Research Engineer.

“I graduated with a First Class Honours Masters in Physics from The University of Nottingham having completed my Masters research project on quantum phenomena at Fudan University in Shanghai. Since then I have spent eight years in research and product development roles at Dyson and Renishaw PLC working on a diverse range of physical systems. These included the proposal and design of a novel system for particulate charge characterisation, and the development of next-generation optical metrology devices; both of which built-upon and demonstrated my skills from Six-Sigma Minitab and Zemax training.

I am passionate about the design, modelling and test-verification of physical systems and I’m looking forward to working with the LumOptica team!”

Welcome to the team Adam, great to have you onboard!

We are very pleased to have recently installed a 38 MW peak power Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. This will enable us to validate and optimise novel laser concepts under development at LumOptica as well as enhancing the suite of experimental capabilities available to our customers.

Below is a video of this laser being focused down to a 35 micron spot in air. Electrons gain enough energy to become ionised. These in turn hit other atoms and liberate more electrons from neighbouring atoms. What you see is the plasma that is briefly formed before the electrons recombine.

LumOptica has been granted CAA-approved Permission for Commercial Operations (PfCO) for drones. Added research capability to assist you in this rapidly evolving and disruptive technology.

We are very excited to be exhibiting once again at SPIE Security + Defence 2019, Strasbourg 10th-11th September. Come along to Booth 712 to see us. We will also be presenting an invited paper on laser filamentation at the High Power Lasers conference session: “Laser Interaction, Effects and Components”. More information here

LumOptica now offers comprehensive atmospheric laser beam propagation modelling support

To help visualise the effects of the atmosphere on laser propagation LumOptica has produced an associated App, based on a simplified version of our propagation model. This allows the user to “target” a drone with an interactive display of the effects on the beam in response to changes in the relative positions (in height and range) of the laser and target under various levels of turbulence. The App also allows the user to vary key systems parameters, such as the initial beam diameter and laser quality.

… but also what you put in; as the saying goes. And this is certainly the case in applications involving the transmission of light through the atmosphere due to the phenomenon of optical scatter.

The air that we breathe is composed almost entirely of Nitrogen (78%) and Oxygen (21%) with a little Argon (1%) and a tiny amount of water vapour and those pesky greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane etc) that are heating up the planet. These gas molecules both absorb and scatter radiation, resulting in the gradual attenuation of light as it travels through the atmosphere. The molecular scattering is strongly wavelength dependent and is the reason why the sky is blue and the setting sun appears red (because the shorter wavelength blue light is scattered more strongly than the red).

In addition to the gas molecules the atmosphere also contains a certain number of airborne particulates (dust, soot, salt-spray, ice-crystals etc) which also absorb and scatter. These are much larger than the gas molecules and their scattering is essentially wavelength independent but in sufficient quantities they can produce very strong attenuation (e.g. fog/mist). However, in addition to scattering light out of a beam these particulates can also scatter light from other sources into the beam and the “noise” caused by this extraneous light may be more of an issue than the degradation in “signal” caused by the scattering losses. Most of us will have experienced driving at night through fog and will be aware of the “glare” caused by the light from the headlights being scattered back towards us. In fact, most of the headlamp beam still gets through to illuminate the road ahead but we can’t see it because it is masked by this glare. Similarly, the stars don’t go out at dawn – it’s just that we can’t see them because of the glare caused by scattered sunlight.

All of the above phenomena are very complex and modelling their effects requires access to special tools and extensive databases of absorption lines and scattering cross-sections. At LumOptica we use the MODTRAN-6 model which allows us to model these effects at extremely high spectral resolution (e.g. the database contains more than 7,000,000 absorption lines in the visible and infrared regions) and which allows us to predict not only the attenuation but also the glare.

We are pleased to have completed installation and preliminary alignment of optical subsystems into UK Dragonfire, following many, many hours of research, development and testing. We are very proud to have been involved in such an exciting program and working with such a great team at QinetiQ. Looking forward to the results!

Dr Peter Rees will be presenting at the Optical Engineering session of the Enlighten Conference at Photonex next week, at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry. Looks like a great programme and we’d be delighted to see you there.

SIMULATION & TESTING OF OPTICS FOR HIGH POWER LASER APPLICATIONS

High-power laser systems require very high-quality optics in order to maintain beam quality and, in the case of Laser directed energy systems, achieve high pointing accuracy. Coherent beam combining systems are especially demanding in this respect, typically requiring a wavefront quality on the scale of a few tens of nanometres to be maintained whilst transmitting tens of thousands of Watts of laser power.

This presentation will introduce the issues involved in designing the optics for such systems. In particular, computer modelling of the heating and consequent optical aberrations of lenses and mirrors will be presented along with experimental validation results.

More info here

We are very excited to be exhibiting at SPIE Security & Defence 2018, Berlin 11th-12th September. Come along to Stand 600 to see us. Looks like a great technical program at the conference also. More information here

We are once again thrilled be presenting at the Electronic Warfare Technology Conference, Defence Academy Shriveham, comprising the 16th Electro-Optics and Infrared Conference.

Roy will be presenting “Simulation & Testing of Optics for Laser DEW Applications”. Hope to see you there.

We are 3 today!

(Modelling of surface heating of fused silica, scanning a modulated laser beam across top surface of silica)

As always, our sincere thanks to clients, collaborators and suppliers. Here’s to fork handles next year.

Lighting specifications seem to be a cause of considerable confusion. Old style filament bulbs were routinely specified by the number of Watts of electrical power that they consumed, and everyone could appreciate that a 100W bulb was brighter than a 60W bulb. However, this description can’t really cope with the different bulb technologies that have become available; for example, that 60W bulb is significantly outshone by a 20W fluorescent tube. The reason for this is down to the differing spectral content of the light from different sources types and the fact that the human eye has different sensitivities to different colours; 1W of green light appears to be significantly brighter than 1W of red or blue. Filament bulbs actually emit most of their radiation in the infrared (which we can’t see) whereas domestic strip lights and LEDs emit only in the visible, hence we need less power from these newer types of source to get the same apparent amount of light as the old bulbs.

The brightness of a source (bulb, LED, whatever) is more correctly specified in units of lumens, which describes the apparent brightness, as perceived by the human eye, and this quantity is now routinely quoted on most domestic lighting packaging. A 1000 lumen bulb will provide the same amount of light as a 1000 lumen LED or a 1000 lumen fluorescent tube.

White-light sources are also often now described by terms such as warm, cool or blue, reflecting the mood that they create. This differing sensation is again due to the different spectral content; cool light has more blue content compared to warm light. This “quality” of the emission is expressed in a quantity called the colour temperature; the higher the colour temperature then the cooler (i.e. bluer) the light (typically, colour temperatures range from around 2200K up to 6200K). Whilst those 1000 lumen sources do indeed provide the same amount of light, subjectively they may appear quite different.

We are pleased to have been certified as Cyber Essentials compliant. This is a government-backed, industry supported scheme to help organisations protect themselves against common cyber attacks.

We are pleased to announce a new addition to our R&D facility: an ISO Class 7 clean-room for build, test and development of optical components and systems. Additional peace of mind for our customers who have come to expect quality and best-practice.

For more information on how we can help you to turn your ideas into products, do not hesitate to contact us.

To complement our expertise in optical modelling and simulation, we are pleased to announce the addition of COMSOL to our capability set. This is an extremely powerful software package for undertaking coupled, bi-directional multi-physics modelling based on finite element analysis. So, whether you’re interested in the propagation of lasers causing non-optical effects or vice versa (or both!), we can help.

BAE Systems PLC recently announced concept work it was undertaking which incorporated feasibility studies that LumOptica have undertaken around laser-atmosphere interactions to induce perturbations on EM waves. This is a fascinating subject area and one in which we were able to bring value-added expertise in high power lasers, optical design and technology intelligence. The full article can be seen here

We are excited to be exhibiting once again at Photonex, 12th & 13th October, Ricoh Arena, Coventry, UK. If you’re able, do come and see us at stand IL05.

Again, we will be giving a talk at the Photonex Innovation Live! meeting on Thursday 13th at 11:40…

Speckle – If you can’t use it can you lose it?

Speckle! Most of us in our industry would claim to be familiar with the phenomenon, at least to the extent that
we could qualitatively explain how it arises, and we’d also probably be aware that it can be usefully exploited
(as in a speckle pattern interferometer) but that it can also be a nuisance (e.g. in laser projection systems).
However, by its nature the treatment of speckle is mathematically complex and most of us would probably
be happy to confess to not understanding it in any detail. This talk will delve into the subject of speckle a little more deeply, avoiding the mathematics (mostly) but hopefully providing an illuminating insight into its properties. The talk will conclude with a look at some of the approaches that have been developed in order to reduce speckle in laser projection systems.

We are pleased to be presenting at the Electro-Optics and Infrared Conference, at the Defence Academy/Cranfield University, Shrivenham on 20th June 2016. We will present our latest developments in ultrabroadband multi-spectral beam combining.

Hope to see you there!

We are 1 today!

It felt appropriate that we were founded during the UN’s “International Year of Light” last year, albeit with slight apprehension! It’s been an exciting and profitable year and we’d like to take the opportunity to extend our deep gratitude to our customers, associates and well-wishers.

In modern times, the position of beam waists of Gaussian laser beams are readily found in optical design software packages but this gives no insight into why or how the beam waist finds itself in that position. This tutorial shows that a pair of equations can determine the position and size of a new beam waist if the position and size of an initial beam waist is known and there is an “ABCD” matrix representation of the optics following the initial beam waist….open here.

We are delighted to be exhibiting at Photonex, 14th-15th October, Ricoh Arena, Coventry, UK. Do come and meet us at stand IL04.

We will also be giving a talk at the Photonex Innovation Live! meeting on Thursday 15th at 11:20 in the Technology Theatre…

Techniques for laser beam combining (or how, in optics, you can indeed get a quart into a pint pot)

It is often the case that we need to combine two or more beams of light into one. For example: to combine the outputs from a number of low power lasers into a single more powerful beam; or to combine the outputs of different wavelength sources into a single multispectral beam. In the trivial case of a couple of beams a simple beamsplitter may suffice but there are limitations in this approach and it rapidly becomes impractical as the number of constituent beams increases. This talk will introduce some of the more novel approaches, illustrated with example systems, that have been developed to deal with the issues posed by the extremes of large beam counts, high powers and wide spectral range.

if you missed this talk, don’t panic – you can download it here