Optica has rolled out its 2026 awards and medals, shining a spotlight on outstanding achievements across optics and photonics worldwide. The honors stretch across technical research, education, leadership, business, and service, with a strong nod to mentorship and the broader impact these folks have on society.
This blog post rounds up the winners and their trailblazing work. Here’s a look at how these individuals and teams are shaping the future of light-based science and technology—sometimes in ways you might not expect.
Overview of the 2026 Optica Awards and Medals
The Optica awards celebrate both fundamental discoveries and practical breakthroughs. They honor advances ranging from chip-scale quantum light sources to quantum information networks, as well as ultrafast spectroscopy and optics education. Below, you’ll find some of this year’s standout honorees and the work that sets them apart.
Max Born Award: Roberto Morandotti
Roberto Morandotti stands out for his pioneering work on chip-scale quantum light sources. He’s also made big strides in nonlinear, ultrafast, and terahertz optics.
Morandotti’s research shows just how powerful integrated photonics can be. It helps move quantum technologies from the lab into real devices—things like faster communication, compact quantum sensors, and new ways to process information.
Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award: YongKeun Park
YongKeun Park gets this award thanks to his groundbreaking work in 3D quantitative phase imaging and AI-powered biomedical tools. His innovations let researchers see living cells and tissues in high detail, without any labels or dyes.
This has big implications for diagnostics, personalized medicine, and basic biology. It’s the kind of leap that makes you wonder what’s next in medical imaging.
Paul F. Forman Team Engineering Excellence Award: TOPTICLOCK (TOPTICA Photonics AG & PTB)
The team effort between TOPTICA Photonics AG and PTB produced a commercial single-ion optical clock that hits industrial-level accuracy. That’s a mouthful, sure, but it means precision timing tech is moving from the lab to the real world.
Telecom, finance, and science experiments all stand to benefit from these robust, market-ready timing solutions.
Leonard Mandel Quantum Optics Award: Hoi-Kwong Lo
Hoi-Kwong Lo gets recognized for key contributions to quantum information science. He’s been instrumental in developing decoy-state and measurement-device-independent QKD, and in pushing forward all-photonic quantum repeaters.
His work lays the groundwork for secure communications and scalable quantum networks. Maybe we’re inching closer to a true quantum internet—who knows?
Notable Honorees
There are plenty of other leaders making waves in spectroscopy, education, and community leadership:
- Jens Biegert (C.E.K. Mees Medal) for attosecond spectroscopy tools.
- Juergen Popp (Ellis R. Lippincott Award) for clinical Raman spectroscopy.
- Yoshihisa Yamamoto (Charles Hard Townes Medal) for coherent Ising machines and related networks.
- Imrana Ashraf (Esther Hoffman Beller Medal) for outstanding work in optics education and outreach in Pakistan.
- Tommaso Calarco (Robert E. Hopkins Leadership Award) for fostering international quantum research cooperation.
Impact on Education, Outreach, and Global Collaboration
Beyond just recognizing scientific excellence, the 2026 awards highlight mentorship, education, and leadership. These elements help build a more diverse and globally connected optics community.
The honorees show how education and outreach can really amplify research impact. They open up access to photonics knowledge and help prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers for real-world challenges.
Optica President Gisele Bennett praised the recipients and thanked the volunteer committees, nominators, and references. She emphasized how much these supporters do for the society’s mission to advance optics and photonics worldwide.
Here is the source article for this story: Optica Names 22 Recipients for 2026 Awards and Medals