International Day of Light

To celebrate the first ever International Day of Light, this special collection explores the success and commercial impact of research into optics, photonics and lasers

Light up your life

The first ever International Day of Light takes place on 16 May 2018

Physicists celebrate inaugural International Day of Light

The day aims to be “an annual focal point" for the role that light plays

Optical innovations light up our lives

Machine vision with depth

Janelle Shane explains how improvements in lidar steering technologies could pay off for autonomous vehicles

Down to earth

How optical technologies developed for astronomers are making their mark in other fields

Take a look inside our latest free-to-read focus on optics and photonics. Answering key questions and covering the latest features and products for those interested in innovation and industry, this issue is a must-read for those working in optics and photonics.

Review articles published on IOPscience

Short-pulse lasers for weather control

J P Wolf 2018 Rep. Prog. Phys. 81 026001

Read on IOPscience

Short-wavelength free-electron laser sources and science: a review

E A Seddon et al 2017 Rep. Prog. Phys. 80 115901

Read on IOPscience

Emerging optical properties from the combination of simple optical effects

Grant T England and Joanna Aizenberg 2018 Rep. Prog. Phys. 81 016402

Read on IOPscience

Discover more about light

Lighting up the world

The Scholar and the Caliph

Unveiling your secret superpower

Taming light with cold atoms

As anyone who uses the Internet will know, the last 10 years have seen some incredible developments in communication. We can now e-mail colleagues thousands of miles away and downl...

Holography gets smart

Exploring the potential of holograms that can respond

The green flash

Pete Lawrence describes his quest since childhood to see this elusive phenomenon

Light emission moves into the blue

Shuji Nakamura describes the advances that enabled his group to develop blue light-emitting diodes and lasers

From ray-gun to Blu-ray

Fifty years after their invention, Sidney Perkowitz examines the huge impact of lasers on science, culture and everyday life

Hubble’s greatest hits

Relive all the best images and results from the Hubble telescope in the company of Mark Voit

Video showcase: light on film

A single light of science

An introduction to the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies (IYL 2015)

Reclaiming the stars

An amateur astronomer struggles to find darkness amid the dazzling lights of New York City

Living in a world without light

A short film exploring the vital role that light plays in regulating the sleep–wake cycle

Vidya Deepa: the lamp of knowledge

How portable LED lights are helping students in a rural Indian community

Painting with light

The New York photographers who are defying the digital trend

Transforming light

Day of the Dead brought to life by multimedia lightshow

Explore more with ebooks from IOP Publishing

Principles and Applications of Fourier Optics
Robert K Tyson introduces the principles of Fourier optics and explores the many applications that have been developed over the last 50 years or so.

Read on IOPscience

A Guided Tour of Light Beams
David S Simon explains how the standard laser beam has evolved into an array of specialized light beams with a variety of strange and counterintuitive properties, and explores their scientific applications.

Read on IOPscience

Electromagnetic Waves and Lasers
Wayne D Kimura reviews basic electromagnetic wave theory and applies it specifically to lasers to give the reader practical knowledge about lasers, and their operation and usage.

Read on IOPscience

Nonlinear Guided Wave Optics
Stefan Wabnitz explores how guided wave nonlinear optics and fibre lasers provide a relatively simple test bed for studying extreme wave phenomena that apply to many different physical systems.

Read on IOPscience

Related jobs

Related events

Nanomaterials | Conference Nanotek Congress 2018 23—24 July 2018 | Sydney, Australia
Optics and photonics | Workshop Synthetic Non-Hermitian Photonic Structures: Recent Results and Future Challenges 13—17 August 2018 | Dresden, Germany
Condensed matter | Conference 103a Reunion de las AFA 2018 17—21 September 2018 | Buenos Aires, Argentina

International Day of Light

A day of light

Light up your life