Photonics West 2026: Highlights for Photonics Scotland

The world’s largest annual photonics event, SPIE Photonics West, which took place from 17^th to 22^nd January 2026 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, attracted more than 23,000 registrants with attendees from 40 countries, showcasing the transnational and collaborative spirit of this interdisciplinary industry. This year the event saw 4,200 technical presentations across 6 focussed tracks, 4 stages of industry-focused panels and presentations, 49 courses, and approximately 1,600 exhibitors in five exhibitions: the Photonics West exhibition, BiOS Expo, the Quantum West Expo, the AR | VR | MR Expo, plus, in its inaugural year, the new Vision Tech Expo.

Technology Scotland was in attendance to represent our members and raise awareness of the Scottish photonics cluster (Photonics Scotland) and their capabilities. Several of our members had booths at the exhibition: III-V Epi, Coherent, Fraunhofer UK,Kelvin Nanotechnology, Sivers Photonics, Skylark, Space Forge, Photon Force, PowerPhotonic and QuSIT.

For the first time at Photonics West Technology Scotland held a Breakfast Briefing event to highlight Scotland’s capabilities in photonics and quantum technologies to an international audience of approximately 40 attendees. The event was held at the British Consulate General San Francisco, thank you to the local FCDO representatives for arranging the meeting room for us! The session started with a short introduction to the Scottish photonics sector presented by Dr Alison McLeod, Director of Photonics Scotland, followed by a series of short ‘market stall’ presentations from 6 of Photonics Scotland member companies (Alter Technologies, Fraunhofer UK, PhotonForce, PQA, PowerPhotonic and Skylark), leaving time at the end for further networking.

Our Director of Photonics Scotland, Alison McLeod, also moderated a well-attended and much praised panel session “US-UK Technology Partnership, Industrial Strategy and Opportunities” which took place on the Expo Stage. The panel, comprised of Ariel Braunstein (IonQ), Mark Gubbins (Seagate Technologies), Eleanor Kiloh (FCDO) and our chair of Photonics Scotland Chris Dorman (Coherent) explored success stories, challenges, opportunities, and the motivations behind US companies investing in the UK.

One of our first events of the whole week was the SPIE Women in Optics event, a celebration of women in optics featuring panel discussions, lightning talks and networking opportunities. The winner of the 2025 Rising Star Technology Scotland award, Emma Pearce (University of Glasgow), was one of the participants, talking about her career path to date and mentorship: it was great to see Scotland being represented on this stage.

The Department of Business and Trade hosted an evening reception, held in partnership with Technology Scotland and Invest NI, to showcase the UK capability, where Eleanor Kiloh, His Majesty’s Consul General in San Francisco spoke about the latest developments in the sector, including Scotland’s Critical Technologies Supercluster.

Having the opportunity to meet with our international counterparts, raise awareness of the capabilities of the Scottish photonics sector and discuss potential collaborations is always a key element of the trip. We participated in the Cluster Leaders meeting, with clusters from around the world attending, and each cluster presented information relating to their network. Following this meeting we attended the SPIE photonics cluster leaders reception, where we met organisations spanning the globe. We also attended networking events hosted by Canada and The Netherlands to meet their cluster members and make connections for the Scottish community.

Alison McLeod, our Director of Photonics Scotland was once again honoured to be one of the judges for the PRISM Awards, an annual international competition, celebrating its 18^th year, that honours the best new optics and photonics products on the market. Congratulations to the 2026 winners!

SPIE Photonics West 2027 will take place from 30^th January – 4^th February at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, with the call for papers for the 2027 event opening in spring 2026.