Last week, Physics World’s Matin Durrani boarded a ferry in Hamburg that was bound for Helgoland – an archipelago in the North Sea about 70 km off the north-west coast of Germany.
It was a century ago in Helgoland that the physicist Werner Heisenberg devised the mathematical framework that underpins our understanding of quantum physics.
Matin was there with some of the world’s leading quantum physicists for the conference Helgoland 2025: 100 Years of Quantum Mechanics – which celebrated Heisenberg’s brief stay in Helgoland.
He caught up with three eminent physicists and asked them to reflect on Heisenberg’s contributions to quantum mechanics and look forward to the next 100 years of quantum science and technology. They are Tracy Northup at the University of Vienna; Michelle Simmons of the University of New South Wales, Sydney; and Peter Zoller of the University of Innsbruck.
This article forms part of Physics World‘s contribution to the 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ), which aims to raise global awareness of quantum physics and its applications.
Stayed tuned to Physics World and our international partners throughout the next 12 months for more coverage of the IYQ.
Find out more on our quantum channel.
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Last week, I looked at the faces of our guests at our moon landing event and watched as awe, wonder and hopefulness transformed into disappointment. Moments before the expected touch […]
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Laser World of Photonics, the leading trade show for the laser and photonics industry, takes place in Munich from 24 to 27 June. Attracting visitors and exhibitors from around the world, the event features 11 exhibition areas covering the entire spectrum of photonic technologies – including illumination and energy, biophotonics, data transmission, integrated photonics, laser systems, optoelectronics, sensors and much more.
Running parallel and co-located with Laser World of Photonics is World of Quantum, the world’s largest trade fair for quantum technologies. Showcasing all aspects of quantum technologies – from quantum sensors and quantum computers to quantum communications and cryptography – the event provides a platform to present innovative quantum-based products and discuss potential applications.
Finally, the World of Photonics Congress (running from 22 to 27 June) features seven specialist conferences, over 3000 lectures and around 6700 experts from scientific and industrial research.
The event is expecting to attract around 40,000 visitors from 70 countries, with the trade shows incorporating 1300 exhibitors from 40 countries. Here are some of the companies and product innovations to look out for on the show floor.
HOLOEYE Photonics AG, a leading provider of spatial light modulator (SLM) devices, announces the release of the GAEA-C spatial light modulator, a compact version of the company’s high-resolution SLM series. The GAEA-C will be officially launched at Laser World of Photonics, showcasing its advanced capabilities and cost-effective design.
The GAEA-C is a phase-only SLM with a 4K resolution of 4094 x 2400 pixels, with an exceptionally small pixel pitch of 3.74 µm. This compact model is equipped with a newly developed driver solution that not only reduces costs but also enhances phase stability, making it ideal for a variety of applications requiring precise light modulation.
The GAEA-C SLM features a reflective liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) display (phase only). Other parameters include a fill factor of 90%, an input frame rate of 30 Hz and a maximum spatial resolution of 133.5 lp/mm.
The GAEA-C is available in three versions, each optimized for a different wavelength range: a VIS version (420–650 nm), a NIR version (650–1100 nm) and a version tailored for the telecommunications waveband around 1550 nm. This versatility ensures that the GAEA-C can meet the diverse needs of industries ranging from telecoms to scientific research.
HOLOEYE continues to lead the market with its innovative SLM solutions, providing unparalleled resolution and performance. The introduction of the GAEA-C underscores HOLOEYE’s commitment to delivering cutting-edge technology that meets the evolving demands of its customers.
At this year’s Laser World of Photonics, Avantes unveils its newest generation of spectrometers: the NEXOS NIR Enhanced and VARIUS NIR Enhanced. Both instruments mark a significant leap in near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, offering up to 2x improved sensitivity and unprecedented data quality for integration into both research and industry applications.
Compact, robust and highly modular, the NEXOS NIR Enhanced spectrometer redefines performance in a small form factor. It features enhanced NIR quantum efficiency in the 700–1100 nm range, with up to 2x increased sensitivity, fast data transfer and improved signal-to-noise ratio. The USB-powered spectrometer is designed with a minimal footprint of just 105 x 80 x 20 mm and built using AvaMation production for top-tier reproducibility and scalability. It also offers seamless integration with third-party software platforms.
The NEXOS NIR Enhanced is ideal for food sorting, Raman applications and VCSEL/laser system integration, providing research-grade performance in a compact housing. See the NEXOS NIR Enhanced product page for further information.
Designed for flexibility and demanding industrial environments, the VARIUS NIR Enhanced spectrometer introduces a patented optical bench for supreme accuracy, with replaceable slits for versatile configurations. The spectrometer offers a dual interface – USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet – plus superior stray light suppression, high dynamic range and enhanced NIR sensitivity in the 700–1100 nm region.
With its rugged form factor (183 x 130 x 45.2 mm) and semi-automated production process, the VARIUS NIR is optimized for real-time applications, ensuring fast data throughput and exceptional reliability across industries. For further information, see the VARIUS NIR Enhanced product page.
Avantes invites visitors to experience both systems live at Laser World of Photonics 2025. Meet the team for hands-on demonstrations, product insights and expert consultations. Avantes offers free feasibility studies and tailored advice to help you identify the optimal solution for your spectroscopy challenges.
Laser World of Photonics sees PicoQuant introduce its newest generation of event timer and time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) unit – the HydraHarp 500. Setting a new standard in speed, precision and flexibility, the TCSPC unit is freely scalable with up to 16 independent channels and a common sync channel, which can also serve as an additional detection channel if no sync is required.
At the core of the HydraHarp 500 is its outstanding timing precision and accuracy, enabling precise photon timing measurements at exceptionally high data rates, even in demanding applications.
In addition to the scalable channel configuration, the HydraHarp 500 offers flexible trigger options to support a wide range of detectors, from single-photon avalanche diodes to superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. Seamless integration is ensured through versatile interfaces such as USB 3.0 or an external FPGA interface for data transfer, while White Rabbit synchronization allows precise cross-device coordination for distributed setups.
The HydraHarp 500 is engineered for high-throughput applications, making it ideal for rapid, large-volume data acquisition. It offers 16+1 fully independent channels for true simultaneous multi-channel data recording and efficient data transfer via USB or the dedicated FPGA interface. Additionally, the HydraHarp 500 boasts industry-leading, extremely low dead-time per channel and no dead-time across channels, ensuring comprehensive datasets for precise statistical analysis.
The HydraHarp 500 is fully compatible with UniHarp, a sleek, powerful and intuitive graphical user interface. UniHarp revolutionizes the interaction with PicoQuant’s TCSPC and time tagging electronics, offering seamless access to advanced measurement modes like time trace, histogram, unfold, raw and correlation (including FCS and g²).
Step into the future of photonics and quantum research with the HydraHarp 500. Whether it’s achieving precise photon correlation measurements, ensuring reproducible results or integrating advanced setups, the HydraHarp 500 redefines what’s possible – offering precision, flexibility and efficiency combined with reliability and seamless integration to achieve breakthrough results.
For more information, visit www.picoquant.com or contact us at info@picoquant.com.
With a strong focus on turnkey, application-specific solutions, SmarAct offers nanometre-precise motion systems, measurement equipment and scalable micro-assembly platforms for photonics, quantum technologies, semiconductor manufacturing and materials research – whether in research laboratories or high-throughput production environments.
At Laser World of Photonics, SmarAct presents a new modular multi-axis positioning system for quantum computing applications and photonic integrated circuit (PIC) testing. The compact system is made entirely from titanium and features a central XY stage with integrated rotation, flanked by two XYZ modules – one equipped with a tip-tilt goniometer.
For cryogenic applications, the system can be equipped with cold plates and copper braids to provide a highly stable temperature environment, even at millikelvin levels. Thanks to its modularity, the platform can be reconfigured for tasks such as low-temperature scanning or NV centre characterization. When combined with SmarAct’s interferometric sensors, the system delivers unmatched accuracy and long-term stability under extreme conditions.
Also debuting is the SGF series of flexure-based goniometers – compact, zero-backlash rotation stages developed in collaboration with the University of Twente. Constructed entirely from non-ferromagnetic materials, the goniometers are ideal for quantum optics, electron and ion beam systems. Their precision has been validated in a research paper presented at EUSPEN 2023.
Targeting the evolving semiconductor and photonics markets, SmarAct’s optical assembly platforms enable nanometre-accurate alignment and integration of optical components. At their core is a modular high-performance toolkit for application-specific configurations, with the new SmarAct robot control software serving as the digital backbone. Key components include SMARPOD parallel kinematic platforms, long-travel SMARSHIFT electromagnetic linear stages and ultraprecise microgrippers – all seamlessly integrated to perform complex optical alignment tasks with maximum efficiency.
Highlights at Laser World of Photonics include a gantry-based assembly system developed for the active alignment of beam splitters and ferrules, and a compact, fully automated fibre array assembly system designed for multicore and polarization-maintaining fibres. Also on display are modular probing systems for fast, accurate and reliable alignment of fibres and optical elements – providing the positioning precision required for chip- and wafer-level testing of PICs prior to packaging. Finally, the microassembly platform P50 from SmarAct Automation offers a turnkey solution for automating critical micro-assembly tasks such as handling, alignment and joining of tiny components.
Whether you’re working on photonic chip packaging, quantum instrumentation, miniaturized medical systems or advanced semiconductor metrology, SmarAct invites researchers, engineers and decision-makers to experience next-generation positioning, automation and metrology solutions live in Munich.
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Thanks to new experiments using the DIPOLE 100-X high-performance laser at the European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL), an international collaboration of physicists has obtained the first detailed view of the microstructure of carbon in its liquid state. The work will help refine models of liquid carbon, enabling important insights into the role that it plays in the interior of ice giant planets like Uranus and Neptune, where liquid carbon exists in abundance. It could also inform the choice of ablator materials in future technologies such as nuclear fusion.
Carbon is the one of the most abundant elements on Earth and indeed the universe, but we still know very little about how it behaves in its liquid state. This is because producing liquid carbon is extremely difficult: at ambient pressures it sublimes rather than melts; and the liquid phase requires pressures of at least several hundred atmospheres to form. What is more, carbon boasts the highest melting temperature (of roughly 4500 °C) of all known materials under these high-pressure conditions, which means that there is no substance that can contain it for long enough to be studied and characterized.
There is an alternative, though, which involves using X-ray free electron laser pulses – such as those produced at the European XFEL – to transform solid carbon into a liquid for a few nanoseconds. The next challenge is to make measurements during this very short period of time. But this is exactly what a team led by Dominik Kraus of the University of Rostock and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has succeeded in doing.
In their work, Kraus and colleagues transiently created liquid carbon by driving strong compression waves into solid carbon samples using the pulsed high-energy laser DIPOLE 100-X, which is a new experimental platform at the European XFEL. In this way, the researchers were able to achieve pressures exceeding one million atmospheres, with the compression waves simultaneously heating the samples to around 7000 K to form liquid carbon. They then obtained in situ snapshots of the structure using ultrabright X-ray pulses at the European XFEL that lasted just 25 fs – that is, about 100,000 times shorter than the already very short lifetime of the liquid carbon samples.
Studying liquid carbon is important for modelling the interior of planets such as the ice giants Neptune and Uranus, as well as the atmosphere of white dwarfs, in which it also exists, explains Kraus. The insights gleaned from the team’s experiments will help to clarify the role that liquid carbon plays in the ice giants and perhaps even comparable carbon-rich exoplanets.
Liquid carbon also forms as a transient state during some technical processes, like in the synthesis of carbon-based materials such as carbon nanotubes, nanodiamonds or “Q-carbon”, and may be key for the synthesis of new carbon materials, such as the long sought after (but still only predicted) “BC-8” structure. The team’s findings could also help inform the choice of materials for inertial fusion implosions aiming for clean and reliable energy production, where carbon is used as an ablator material.
“Because of its relevance in these areas, I had already tried to study liquid carbon during my doctoral work more than 10 years ago,” Kraus says. “Without an XFEL for characterization, I could only obtain a tiny hint of the liquid structure of carbon (and with large error bars) and was barely able to refine any existing models.”
Until now, however, this work was considered as being the best attempt to characterize the structure of liquid carbon at Mbar pressures, he tells Physics World. “Using the XFEL as a characterization tool and the subsequent analysis was incredibly simple in comparison to all the previous work and, in the end, the most important challenge was to get the European XFEL facility ready – something that I had already discussed more than 10 years ago too when the first plans were being made for studying matter under extreme conditions at such an installation.”
The results of the new study, which is detailed in Nature, prove that simple models cannot describe the liquid state of carbon very well, and that sophisticated atomistic simulations are required for predicting processes involving this material, he says.
Looking forward, the Rostock University and HZDR researchers now plan to extend their methodology to the liquid states of various other materials. “In particular, we will study mixtures of light elements that may exist in planetary interiors and the resulting chemistry at extreme conditions,” reveals Kraus. “This work may also be interesting for forming doped nanodiamonds or other phases with potential technological applications.”
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A SpaceX Starship upper stage being prepared for the company’s next flight exploded June 19 during preparations for a static-fire test.
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The nomination, submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee, elevates Guetlein from his current role as vice chief of space operations
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Firefly Aerospace says it plans to offer a commercial lunar imaging service for use by governments and companies, one that could supplement or replace an existing, but aging, NASA orbiter.
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Local regulators have approved Ukrainian telco Kyivstar’s plans to start testing space-enabled texting services this summer using SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, targeting areas crippled by Russian strikes and other terrestrial coverage gaps.
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A new solid-state laser can make a vast number of precise optical measurements each second, while sweeping across a broad range of optical wavelengths. Created by a team led by Qiang Lin at the University of Rochester in the US, the device can be fully integrated onto a single chip.
Optical metrology is a highly versatile technique that uses light to gather information about the physical properties of target objects. It involves illuminating a sample and measuring the results with great precision – using techniques such as interferometry and spectroscopy. In the 1960s, the introduction of lasers and the coherent light they emit boosted the technique to an unprecedented level of precision. This paved the way for advances ranging from optical clocks, to the detection of gravitational waves.
Yet despite the indispensable role they have played so far, lasers have also created a difficult challenge. To ensure the best possible precision, experimentalists much achieve very tight control over the wavelength, phase, polarization and other properties of the laser light. This is very difficult to do within the tiny solid-state laser diodes that are very useful in metrology.
Currently, the light from laser diodes is improved externally using optical modules. This added infrastructure is inherently bulky and it remains difficult to integrate the entire setup onto chip-scale components – which limits the development of small, fast lasers for metrology.
Lin and colleagues addressed this challenge by designing a new laser with two key components. One is a laser cavity that comprises a thin film of lithium niobate. Thanks to the Pockels effect, this material’s refractive index can vary depending on the strength of an applied electric field. This provides control over the wavelength of the light amplified by the cavity.
The other component is a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR), which is a structure containing periodic grooves that create alternating regions of refractive index. With the right spacing of these grooves, a DBR can strongly reflect light at a single, narrow linewidth, while scattering all other wavelengths. In previous studies, lasers were created by etching a DBR directly onto a lithium niobate film – but due to the material’s optical properties, this resulted in a broad linewidth.
“Instead, we developed an ‘extended DBR’ structure, where the Bragg grating is defined in a silica cladding,” explains team member Mingxiao Li at the University of California Santa Barbara. “This allowed for flexible control over the grating strength, via the thickness and etch depth of the cladding. It also leverages silica’s superior etchability to achieve low scattering strength, which is essential for narrow linewidth operation.”
Using a system of integrated electrodes, Lin’s team can adjust the strength of the electric field they applied to the lithium niobate film. This allows them to rapidly tune the wavelengths amplified by the cavity via the Pockels effect. In addition, they used a specially designed waveguide to control the phase of light passing into the cavity. This design enabled them to tune their laser over a broad range of wavelengths, without needing external correction modules to achieve narrow linewidths.
Altogether, the laser demonstrated an outstanding performance on a single chip – producing a clean, single wavelength with very little noise. Most importantly, the light had a linewidth of just 167 Hz – the smallest range achieved to date for a single-chip lithium niobate laser. This exceptional performance enabled the laser to rapidly sweep across a bandwidth of over 10 GHz – equivalent to scanning quintillions of points per second.
“These capabilities translated directly into successful applications,” Li describes. “The laser served as the core light source in a high-speed LIDAR system, measuring the velocity of a target 0.4 m away with better than 2 cm distance resolution. The system supports a velocity measurement as high as Earth’s orbital velocity – around 7.91 km/s – at 1 m.” Furthermore, Lin’s team were able to lock their laser’s frequency with a reference gas cell, integrated directly onto the same chip.
By eliminating the need for bulky control modules, the team’s design could now pave the way for the full miniaturization of optical metrology – with immediate benefits for technologies including optical clocks, quantum computers, self-driving vehicles, and many others.
“Beyond these, the laser’s core advantages – exceptional coherence, multifunctional control, and scalable fabrication – position it as a versatile platform for transformative advances in high-speed communications, ultra-precise frequency generation, and microwave photonics,” Lin says.
The new laser is described in Light: Science & Applications.
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The company secured a Federal Aviation Administration five-year reentry license that allows unlimited landings in Australia
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In 1962, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. What saved us wasn’t just luck — it was the hotline hastily established between […]
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Array Labs, based in Palo Alto, California, is developing a 3D radar imaging constellation designed to operate in clusters
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Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have created a thousand colour image of the nearby Sculptor Galaxy.
First discovered by Carloine Herschel in 1783 the spiral galaxy lies 11 million light-years away and is one of the brightest galaxies in the sky.
While conventional images contain only a handful of colours, this new map contains thousands, which helps astronomers to understand the age, composition and motion of the stars, gas and dust within it.
To create the image, researchers observed the galaxy for over 50 hours with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on the VLT, which is based at the Paranal Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
The team then stitched together over 100 exposures to cover an area of the galaxy about 65 000 light-years wide.
The image revealed around 500 planetary nebulae – regions of gas and dust cast off from dying Sun-like stars – that can be used as distance markers to their host galaxies.
“Galaxies are incredibly complex systems that we are still struggling to understand,” notes astronomer Enrico Congiu, lead author of the study. “The Sculptor Galaxy is in a sweet spot – it is close enough that we can resolve its internal structure and study its building blocks with incredible detail, but at the same time, big enough that we can still see it as a whole system.”
Future work will involve understanding how gas flows, changes its composition, and forms stars in the galaxy. “How such small processes can have such a big impact on a galaxy whose entire size is thousands of times bigger is still a mystery,” adds Congiu.
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The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work and Live
By Alan Lightman and Martin Rees
In their delightful new book, cosmologist Martin Rees and physicist and science writer Alan Lightman seek to provide “an honest picture of scientists as people and how they work and think”. The Shape of Wonder does this by exploring the nature of science, examining the role of critical thinking, and looking at how scientific theories are created and revised as new evidence emerges. It also includes profiles of individual scientists, ranging from historical Nobel-prize winners such as physicist Werner Heisenberg and biologist Barbara McClintock, to rising stars like CERN theorist Dorota Grabowska. Matin Durrani
Our Accidental Universe: Stories of Discovery from Asteroids to Aliens
By Chris Lintott
TV presenter and physics professor Chris Lintott brings all his charm and wit to his new book Our Accidental Universe. He looks at astronomy through the lens of the human errors and accidents that lead to new knowledge. It’s a loose theme that allows him to skip from the search for alien life to pulsars and the Hubble Space Telescope. Lintott has visited many of the facilities he discusses, and spoken to many people working in these areas, adding a personal touch to his stated aim of elucidating how science really gets done. Kate Gardner
Science is Lit: Awesome Electricity and Mad Magnets
By Big Manny (Emanuel Wallace)
Want to feed your child’s curiosity about how things work (and don’t mind creating a mini lab in your house)? Take a look at Awesome Electricity and Mad Magnets, the second in the Science is Lit series by Emanuel Wallace – aka TikTok star “Big Manny”. Wallace introduces four key concepts of physics – force, sound, light and electricity – in an enthusiastic and fun way that’s accessible for 8–12 year olds. With instructions for experiments kids can do at home, and a clear explanation of the scientific process, your child can really experience what it’s like to be a scientist. Sarah Tesh
Space Posters & Paintings: Art About NASA
By Bill Schwartz
Astronomy is the most visually gifted of all the sciences, with endless stunning photographs of our cosmos. But perhaps what sets NASA apart from other space agencies is its art programme, which has existed since 1962. In Space Posters and Paintings: Art about NASA, documentary filmmaker Bill Schwartz has curated a striking collection of nostalgic artworks that paint the history of NASA and its various missions across the solar system and beyond. Particularly captivating are pioneering artist Robert McCall’s paintings of the Gemini and Apollo missions. This large-format coffee book is a perfect purchase for any astronomy buff. Tushna Commissariat
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Venturi Space, a company working with Astrolab on lunar rover concepts, unveiled an all-European rover design it hopes to offer to European space agencies.
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Three European aerospace companies expect to decide by next month whether to combine their space divisions, something that could still take years to win regulatory approvals.
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The Trump administration’s proposal would cut electro-optical imagery funding and eliminate funding entirely for the acquisition of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery
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