The greatest honor of my career has been to be a designer of lasers that are used by others to do amazing things. My specialty has been designing picosecond and femtosecond lasers for both scientific and industrial applications, with the greatest number of systems being employed in bioimaging. In 1990, there was a wonderful confluence of new technology, consisting of mode-locked Ti:sapphire lasers and the emergence of two-photon microscopy by the Webb group at Cornell University, USA. Working with my colleagues, we eventually took all the knobs off the lasers, integrating everything into a single box and making the technology accessible to a much wider audience. In a third-generation product, we extended the wavelength range to include the longer wavelengths required to increase the depth of two-photon imaging and, ultimately, we developed completely new lasers suitable for three-photon imaging to push to even greater depths.
I love discussing the evolution of the technology for multiphoton imaging, but it is the work of our customers that is driving progress at the forefront of bioimaging, from understanding the brain to a host of other fundamental studies. One of my heroes in the field is Chris Xu, whose feature article this month covers the latest breakthroughs in three-photon imaging. His team’s research has demonstrated the power of three-photon microscopy in capturing neuronal activity deep within the mouse brain—beyond the reach of traditional imaging techniques. By refining adaptive optics, his work is paving the way for clearer, deeper imaging of complex biological systems.
Also in this issue, Optica senior science advisor Tom Hausken provides an overview of the biophotonics R&D market. In the article, he highlights the breadth of the biophotonics field as lower-cost laser sources and photonic integrated circuits are revolutionizing product offerings. For an additional view of the current state of the industry, I suggest the recording of the Optica Online Industry Meeting on BioSensing from last February that is available on YouTube at https://shorturl.at/524nx.
I also want to personally invite you to the Optica Biophotonics Congress: Optics in the Life Sciences, taking place from 21 to 24 April in beautiful Coronado, CA, USA. The Congress consists of multiple meetings: Bio-Optics: Design and Applications, Novel Techniques in Microscopy, Optical Manipulation and Its Applications, Optical Molecular Probes, Imaging and Drug Delivery, Optics and the Brain, and Clinical and Translational Biophotonics. To whet your appetite—or to console you if you are unable to join us—this issue features an interview with Sophie Hernot, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, a plenary speaker at the Congress.
Finally, in this issue we celebrate the 2025 Optica Fellows. Please read through the list of honorees to fully appreciate the quality of their achievements and the amazing reach of our field. Send your friends and colleagues a note of congratulations and then take a moment to think of who you might nominate for the 2026 class of Fellows. I challenge you to nominate those people who are doing excellent work but have not yet received the recognition they deserve.
—Jim Kafka,
Optica President