Challenges posed when sensing under the difficult conditions encountered in military environments lie at the heart of many applications of photonics. This conference brings together emerging activities in sensor and optical technologies within the context of their associated defence and potential civilian application. As interests shift towards the exploitation of autonomous platforms, unmanned systems and small satellites, there are requirements to address size, weight, power and manufacturing cost issues for those components and devices. 

Emerging micro-scale and nano-scale device concepts can support the realization of low-cost, power-efficient solutions, especially those required for use in hand-held systems. For example, the understanding of plasmonics and sub-wavelength scale metallo-dielectric structures is advancing, as is the realization of metamaterials at optical wavelengths. New approaches exploiting micro and nano-technologies can also provide for unprecedented advance in the ability to control the propagation of light, providing the basis for devices capable of being exploited in adaptive optical systems. In addition, techniques to understand and improve target discrimination, to enable more accurate target tracking and provide vision through turbulent atmospheres, can benefit from the application of both pre-detector and post-detector processing techniques. The relevance of embedded software is becoming increasingly important, driving the search for improved algorithms to support the management of large streaming datasets to avoid adverse impact on communication channels in networked environments.

Improved active and passive components are required, including laser sources, modulators and photo-detectors, which in some cases can be brought together in photonic integrated circuits. New materials eg graphene are emerging, as well as those exploiting quantum-scale effects (eg quantum dots) that offer the potential for disruptive advance in many areas of photonics. New optical techniques and devices can enable the processing of RF signals as well as the evolution of new techniques for extraction of patterns in data streams as would be relevant to challenges in cyber security.

In the area of chemical and biological sensing, some existing capabilities already exploit photonic devices such as quantum cascade lasers, but these can also support the detection of concealed energetic materials and the remote sensing of precursor materials.

Advanced photon-counting technologies provide the basis for wide area terrain mapping as well as quantum communications, quantum sensing and quantum ghost imaging, especially when there are requirements for operating in covert environments. New approaches in the area of avalanche photodiode array technologies are relevant here to allow operation across wide spectral ranges, especially in the SWIR band.