Light surrounds us in our daily life. On the most fundamental level, through photosynthesis, light is necessary to the existence of life itself. Light phenomena, like a sunset or a rainbow, are not only beautiful and breathtaking, they also enticed humans to discover the nature of light and harness its power by manipulating it in the field of optics and photonics. This pursuit gave rise to some of the most interesting and controversial theories in science, e.g. the wave/particle duality of light, and useful and widespread technologies, e.g. the laser, just to name a couple.

Optics and photonics have become key enabling technologies of the future. Their many applications have revolutionised society in various fields, such as healthcare, communications, environment, defence and security, manufacturing, energy, science, arts and entertainment.

Photonics products and components can be found everywhere: in medical instruments, broadband internet networks, barcode scanners, DVD players, cameras, remote sensors, laser cuSng, welding and machining systems, electronic circuit production, solar panels, microscopes, telescopes, lighting systems and laser scanners. Businesses in the field of photonics and light based technologies work on providing solution to key challenges in our society. Photonic technologies have major impact on the world economy with a current global market of 180 billion AUD and projected market value of over 400 billion AUD in 2020.

This talk will introduce light in our everyday experience, and then zoom in into the physical nature of light. It will uncover the various steps through history that allowed mankind to make use and even create light, in some cases, as for the laser, as a solution in search of a problem.

The breadth of applications that light-based technologies have found since will be shown in detail, also with references to the speakers’ research activities. In conclusion, the effort to promote awareness and use of photonics technologies around the world by initiative, such as the UNESCO International Year of Light, will be presented, with a specific focus to the activities organised in Western Australia.