I wore glasses since I was a kid and I always wanted to be like my friends who could play sports and go to the pool without having sight problems. Two years ago I was able to have eye surgery to reduce my myopia and I can finally see the world directly and not through my glasses! And all thanks to the photons of an ultra-precise laser that allowed the surgeon to make incisions in my eyes with minimal risk.

I've loved cinema since I was a child, but I decided that would be my life when I saw my first 3D movie. The possibility of seeing the depth of the scenes on the screen seemed like magic to me. But, as is often the case in cinema, it’s just a special effect! The glasses with polarizing lenses that are given at the entrance, select different photons that come from the projectors, bringing to our eyes two slightly different images that our brain combines creating the feeling of three-dimensionality.

I am a high school physics teacher and to motivate my students I always try to connect the concepts I explain with things from everyday life.

The Sars-CoV-2 pandemic has made it easy for me to explain infrared radiation, as we find devices in many places that measure temperature quickly and remotely. These thermometers are photon sensors that capture the infrared radiation emitted by our bodies. Also UVC ultraviolet light can be useful to disinfect, because it can destroy eventual pathogens.

Sunlight is a free and inexhaustible source of energy that we must learn to use efficiently, especially in the current context of climate emergency.

At ICFO, several people are studying new materials to create transparent and/or flexible solar cells that would allow us to obtain energy from places that currently aren’t used for the generation of energy. For example, they could be integrated into electric cars to increase their autonomy or into the windows of buildings to maximize the surface area of sunlight capture and therefore energy production. They could also be integrated into clothing or wearable devices, reducing the size of batteries and therefore of the object.

Photo: The square of different color on the O of the ICFO logo is a transparent solar cell

Digital manufacturing is one of the key innovations of the fourth industrial revolution we are experiencing. The ability to print 3D objects has opened up countless new possibilities on both the small scale of makers and startups, and the industrial scale.

One of the most interesting techniques to quickly  obtain complex objects is sintering, but it has the important limitation that it can only create black or gray objects.

A recent technology developed at ICFO allows different colors to be added to this 3D printing technique, opening the door to new potential applications and the possibility of integrating artistic and aesthetic design into digital manufacturing.

To capture images of some very fast things (such as a bullet passing through an apple) it is essential to illuminate them with a pulse of light as fast as the scene that we want to capture. Thus, in order to observe the behavior of the electrons in some chemical reactions, it is necessary to send extremely fast light pulses.

So fast that one second would have to be divided by the number of seconds that have passed since the beginning of the universe to get its duration (a few attoseconds).

In one of ICFO laboratories, they are working on the generation of these pulses to study phenomena that can help improve the synthesis of chemicals or the performance of fuels or computers.

Photo: One of the ICFO lasers that can generate ultrafast pulses

ICFO encourages society to be part of the scientific community through rigorous scientific experiments that require citizen participation, making society aware of the importance of science in an attractive way, and enabling everyone to significantly contribute to scientific research.

In recent years, ICFO has coordinated various citizen science experiments, such as the BIG Bell Test, involving more than 100,000 citizens in a series of cutting-edge quantum physics experiments conducted in 12 leading laboratories around the world. It also organized NightUp Castelldefels, a pilot experiment to test whether we can use the sensors in mobile phones to gather useful data for studies on light pollution.

Photo: Citizens participating in NightUp Castelldefels.

During the Cold War years, most of the discoveries made in the Soviet countries were published in Russian and therefore were not easily accessible at the global level. It is evident that clear and effective communication is at the heart of scientific progress.

Today, English is widely used as a common language. Scientists who do not speak well English, may be in disadvantage, because it is harder for them to express themselves correctly and to disseminate their ideas and results than for their English native-speaker colleagues. How can we ensure equal opportunities independently of the native language of scientists, while maintaining a common language that allows for quick and effective communication within the science community?

Conferences are the perfect opportunity for scientists to share their work with colleagues around the world, exchange ideas, and establish new collaborations.

In recent years, the climate emergency has begun to open the debate on whether travel should be reduced in favor of virtual events, which do not allow socialization and bonding to occur naturally as in a in person conference.

The 2020 pandemic has accelerated this debate: should scientific meetings be in person or virtual?

The pandemic that arose in 2020 taught us that public health is an important sector that affects many more aspects of society. A tiny virus can affect the lives of millions of people in all its aspects, not only health, but also the economy, industrial structure, labor market ...

That’s why it’s important to focus most of our efforts on research projects that can improve and care for people’s health.

We live in the information age. More and more companies and institutions are collecting and analyzing large amounts of data to improve industrial processes and services for the population. In addition, digital technologies are essential to communicate with each other, whether for work or fun. If information systems fail, strategic structures such as energy networks, traffic control, hospitals, governments, etc. fail, too. Thus, ensuring data security for quick and massive data transfer is of fundamental importance for a digitized society like ours.

That is why it is important to focus most of our efforts on research projects that can improve data collection, analysis, transmission and security.

We are in the middle of a climate emergency: to be able to solve it we need new environmental policies and the commitment of society as a whole. Science and technology can accelerate the change of paradigm that we need to save the planet with discoveries and innovative technologies. If we do nothing now, the Earth will be uninhabitable and unsustainable, but there’s still time.

That’s why it’s important to focus most of our efforts on research projects that can help us take care of our planet.

Photonics is everywhere and has a positive impact in many different aspects of our lives. Sometimes, the same technology (such as the laser) can improve health, information and care for the environment at the same time. There are many global issues and it is difficult to set a priority, especially because they are interconnected.

That’s why it’s important not to focus our efforts on a single field of application: it’s better to diversify our efforts to have more chances of success.