“PHUTURE 2030”: B-PHOT’s roadmap for cutting-edge photonics research and disruptive technology

Photonics – the science and technology that exploits the unique properties of light - is essential to our ability to fundamentally address the enormous global societal and environmental challenges of our times. Photonics research is currently revolutionizing domains such as Health, Digital Infrastructure, Manufacturing, Safety & Security, Space, Agro-Food, Mobility, and Energy. At the same time, photonics technologies are enabling new highly-efficient production processes which consume less resources while cutting pollution – fully supporting the Green Deal to make Europe climate neutral by 2050 and in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The Brussels Photonics research group of the Faculty of Engineering of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (B-PHOT VUB, https://b-phot.org/) has been actively pioneering in the field of photonics for more than 35 years. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. ir. Hugo Thienpont, who holds the Methusalem research excellence chair since 2009, B-PHOT now runs a world-class photonics research and innovation center with more than 70 researchers, technology experts, and skilled administrative and technical staff. B-PHOT’s strength-in-depth is manifested in five high-level research teams equipped with cutting-edge photonics technology platforms for optical modelling and design, prototyping and manufacturing, metrology and quality control, and proof-of-concept demonstration of optics and photonics components and systems. Each B-PHOT research team consists of a critical mass of principal investigators, post-docs, and PhD students, with unique knowledge and distinct technological expertise in a core-photonics research domain and has a strong network of national and international collaborative partners. Three teams, namely the optical fiber sensing team, the extreme optics team, and the biophotonics and spectroscopy team are long-established teams, operational for more than two decades. The two other teams, the non-linear photonics team, and the semiconductor laser team, are centred around two ERC Starting Grant holders, and are as such naturally younger. The principal investigators and their teams strongly collaborate under the scientific and strategic leadership of Prof. Hugo Thienpont, to jointly explore new fundamental and applied research topics that occur at the cross-section of their respective domains. Today B-PHOT is internationally recognized for its distinct scientific and technological contributions in fundamental, strategic, applied, and industrial photonics; for its leadership in the European photonics research and innovation community through its coordinating role in large-scale pan-European EU- funded initiatives; and for its successful transfer of its research results and expertise to companies across a broad range of industry sectors. By 2022 B-PHOT will have successfully completed its second Methusalem project (2016-2022) and has therefore now prepared its third ambitious photonics research roadmap for the period 2022-2028 with the aim to renew the unique and flexible Methusalem grant. This will be essential in allowing the B-PHOT teams to continue pushing the frontiers of photonics research and technology in their respective core and cross-cutting photonics domains, and to explore in collaboration with international research teams disruptive multi- and inter- disciplinary research fields where photonics is either core or a key-enabler.