Optics, Photonics, & Imaging

Optics and optical applications are found in every aspect of our lives, from contact lenses and fiber-optics communication to the precision optics of NASA telescopes and Mars.

Rochester is often described as the “birthplace of optics in North America,” a title earned through more than a century of innovation. The story begins in the 1800s with visionary entrepreneurs who recognized the potential of precision optics. But Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch + Lomb weren’t just companies—they were innovation engines that attracted the world’s brightest optical minds to Rochester.

Those legacies and many of the minds that steered those companies are still here. About 60 percent of all optics degrees awarded in the United States are conferred by institutions in Greater Rochester.

These institutions include The Institute of Optics at University of Rochester, founded in 1929 as the nation’s first optics program. Monroe Community College in Rochester is the nation’s only optical systems technology associates degree program, and it directly supports the region’s robust optics and electro-optics workforce.

The Rochester region is also the number one major metro for optics patents, driven by patent activity in OLED, digital imaging, glass wafers for smartphones, advanced microscopy, and numerous other innovations.

Photonics is the science of harnessing light and the use of photons (light particles) instead of electrons (electricity) to generate, transmit, process, and sense information.

Photonics powers an array of technologies, including semiconductors, satellites, and endoscopic surgery.

The Rochester region is at the forefront of the photonics industry. Leading entities, in addition to CEIS, include:

• AIM Photonics in Rochester is the national manufacturing innovation hub for integrated photonics, with a focus on silicon photonics testing, assembly, and packaging.
• The RIT Integrated Photonics Group at RIT develops photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for high-performance computing, communication, and sensing systems, focused on quantum integrated photonics and visible integrated photonics.
• New York Photonics: The primary regional and state industry cluster organization representing over 150 companies, research universities, and workforce programs.

Long referred to as “The World’s Image Center,” Rochester’s legacy and future intersect with the immersion of advanced imaging capabilities across industries, from surgical scans to space detection, and also AI to imaging (aka intelligent imaging).

Imaging today is generally defined as the non-invasive process of using physical phenomena — such as X-rays, sound waves, magnetic fields, and radioactive tracers — combined with computer vision and algorithms to visualize structures and processes invisible to the naked eye. Imaging technologies include the displays and light sensors in our phone cameras, cars, satellites, endoscopes (literally: looking inside), night vision systems, and a myriad other applications.