Harnessing light power may be a new thing for some countries. However, Europe has a long history of using harnessed light to increase the practical and technical capacities of human species. Presently, the light power is utilised through photonic technology. Europe is the main market of photonic technology that is well established when it comes to light technologies.
It’s expected that the photonic market in Europe will attain an annual growth rate of 8.6% before the year 2020. Although at this moment light technology has been expanded to various sectors such as wearable devices, quantum computing, self-driving vehicles, and the health sector, the technology dates back several decades.
Evolution of Photonics
Light technology wasn’t easily discovered. Various scientists had to wrestle with the theoretical properties of light. The first documentation of light theory appeared in the vision treaties of Euclid. The mathematician postulated over light’s geometrical properties. With the inspiration of Euclid, Ibn, an Arab mathematician, hypothesised that objects radiate light.
However, Newton’s works of the 17th century proved to be the most relevant development of photonics theory. According to Issac Newton, light is a mixture of different colours with varying refractivity. The theory formed the basis of the scientist’s research.
Planck and Einstein finally managed to reveal the nature of light. Planck found the relationship between energy carried by photons and the travel frequency of photons. However, Einstein discovered that photons striking elections are made of particles or waves alone but rather both waves and particles.
Revolutionary Potential
As light technology is being adopted in various industries, the revolutionary potential of the technology is predictable. According to the European Commission, light photonics is a key to 21st-century technology. Critical technology applications like AI, additive manufacturing, IoT, robotics, autonomous driving and big data will require more reliable fast and powerful photonics.