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Optics and Photonics

Why Earth's Best Optical Fiber Can Only Be Made in Space
The incredible benefits of ZBLAN optical fiber and why it needs microgravity, and which companies are building in-space manufacturing and offering…
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Vikram Sekar
The Silicon Photonics Moonshot: Group IV Integrated Lasers
An exploration of how group IV materials could solve the longstanding problem of silicon’s indirect bandgap, enabling monolithic photonic circuits with…
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Vikram Sekar
Why Fathom Light uses LiDAR in Long Range Airborne Applications
Why it makes sense to use LiDAR technology instead of radar in unmanned drones.
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Vikram Sekar
January 2025: Margin Notes on Optics
Broken undersea cables, imaging electrons with attosecond pulses, affordable lidar for automotive, peacock-inspired semiconductor lasers that cut steel…
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Vikram Sekar
Why We Can't Build Lasers on Silicon
Silicon's Achilles Heel is that its indirect bandgap prevents the implementation of high performance integrated lasers which are much desired in…
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Vikram Sekar
6
A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology
A guide to the operating principles, techniques and technology in lidar systems for self driving cars.
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Tesla’s Big Bet: Cameras over LiDAR for Self Driving Cars
Is Tesla’s camera-first self driving approach better than LiDAR? And what autonomous vehicles can learn from superhuman chess engines.
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Vikram Sekar
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© 2025 Vikram Sekar
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