BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA — The highly selective and high-impact journal Advanced Photonics has selected the Editor-in-Chief Choice Awards for the best papers published in the journal in 2023. 

Established in 2019, Advanced Photonics publishes innovative research in all areas of optics and photonics, including fundamental and applied research. The Gold Open Access journal is co-published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and Chinese Laser Press (CLP). Available online in the SPIE Digital Library and at CLP’s Researching site, the journal has an Impact Factor of 17.3 and a CiteScore of 22.8, among the highest for the optics and photonics discipline.

Xiao-Cong (Larry) Yuan of Shenzhen University and Anatoly Zayats of King's College London jointly serve as the founding Co-Editors-in-Chief for the journal. The Advanced Photonics Editor-in-Chief Choice Awards, established in 2020, recognize exceptional papers—typically, an original research article and a review article—based on the importance of the work to the optics and photonics field. Articles published between December 2022 and December 2023 were eligible for the honor.

The winning research article “Massively parallel universal linear transformations using a wavelength-multiplexed diffractive optical network” was published in January of 2023 and authored by Jingxi Li, Tianyi Gan, Bijie Bai, Yi Luo, Mona Jarrahi, and Aydogan Ozcan, all jointly from the University of California, Los Angeles and California NanoSystems Institute (United States). 

“It is surprising how optics contributes to seemingly unrelated technologies,” says Zayats. “This paper, while addressing a practical challenge to develop machine vision for analysis and identification of objects and scenes with various spectral properties, provides new insights on the use of diffractive optical networks operating at multiple wavelengths to speed up information processing at the increased speeds and reduced energy requirements, emphasizing the advantages of optical computing. Biomedical imaging, remote sensing, analytical chemistry, material science and, in reverse, intelligent displays, may benefit from the developed approach.” 

The winning review article “Integrated-resonant metadevices: a review” was published in February 2023 and authored by Jin Yao, Rong Lin, Mu Ku Chen, and Din Ping Tsai of the City University of Hong Kong (China).

 “Exploring the integration of resonant units in metadevices, this review comprehensively details advancements in electromagnetic wave manipulation,” notes Yuan. “By merging diverse resonant modes, it achieves enhanced device performance in efficiency, selectivity, and tunability. Highlighting both theoretical foundations and practical applications, this work significantly contributes to the field of optical devices, indicating new directions for future photonic research.”