PhotonicSweden News

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Photonic Sweden
March 29, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

🌟 Notes from the Office

We are pleased to share the latest updates from PhotonicSweden and the broader photonics community.

This season brings exciting momentum as preparations continue for the upcoming Optics & Photonics in Sweden 2026 conference. The event is shaping up to be a key meeting point for researchers, industry leaders, and innovators, highlighting cutting-edge developments and strengthening collaboration across the field.

We are also encouraged by the steady progress of the Swedish Photonics Excellence Center, an initiative that continues to foster innovation, support emerging technologies, and reinforce Sweden’s position as a leader in photonics research and application.

In this edition, we would like to remind our personal members about the annual membership renewal for PhotonicSweden. Your continued support is essential in enabling our activities, advocacy, and community-building efforts.

Beyond Sweden, we look ahead to important international engagements. Highlights include Optics and Photonics Days (OPD) in Finland, offering valuable networking and knowledge exchange opportunities, as well as the PH21 Annual Meeting in Brussels, where strategic discussions on the future of photonics in Europe will take place.

Best regards,
PhotonicSweden

🗓️ Swedish Photonics Excellence Cluster

Sweden has a strong position in photonics, with world-leading research, an industrial base, and applications across sectors. The Vinnova-funded pre-study coordinated by PhotonicSweden and RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden) is taking shape to bring these strengths together into a nationally aligned Swedish Photonics Excellence Cluster.

A strong foundation across research and industry

The initiative builds on an already impressive national landscape. Sweden hosts a broad and internationally recognised research community, with areas such as light-matter interaction, optical communications, quantum photonics, and advanced imaging. At the same time, a diverse ecosystem of companies—from startups to global industrial players—develops photonics technologies and integrates them into systems for healthcare, manufacturing, energy, mobility, defence, and communications with the help of European partners.

✨Upcoming events

OPS-2026 Save the date 6-8 Oct-2026 at the Museum of Work in Norrköping, Sweden

The conference is located in the listed building Strykjärnet (The Flat Iron), previously a cotton mill and once described by sculptor Carl Milles as the most beautiful industrial building in Sweden. The Flat Iron is situated at the centre of Norrköping’s scenic Industrial Landscape and is an important part of the city’s cultural heritage.

2026-04-15 – Welcome to SEMICON 2026 at Elektronikmässan, Åby Arena, Gothenburg

The Must-Attend Event Shaping Sweden’s Role in Europe’s Semiconductor Future SEMICON 2026 brings together the people, ideas, and collaborations driving the next era of semiconductor and electronics innovation.

2026-05-26 to 25 Optics and Photonics Days 2026, Jyväskylä, Finland

Optics and Photonics Days (OPD) is an annual central event in Optics and Photonics in Finland and the largest yearly Photonics event in the Nordics.

OPD offers an unique opportunity to learn from interesting presentations from Academy and Industry program running in parallel, network with companies, students and researchers in the field of photonics and optics, but also to explore products and services at OPD Exhibition that is held during the conference.

Save the date:
Photonics Partnership Annual Meeting in Brussels

Save the date for the next Photonics Partnership Annual Meeting 2026, which will take place will at the DoubleTree by Hilton Brussels City hotel on 9 & 10 June 2025!

The event will focus on photonics in the next EU Framework Programme and will present the new Photonics Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda to the European Commission.

Take the opportunity to get the latest updates on the next EU Framework Programme and to network with your peers from the European photonics community.

The draft event programme as well as the link to the online registration and any further information will be published within the next months. Read more here.

Försvarsdagen 2026 (Defence Day)

Sweden’s and Europe’s security cannot wait.

The public debate makes one thing clear: defense innovation and development are moving too slowly. What is missing is speed, less bureaucracy, and alignment within the ecosystem. Some actors are actively driving change, but there is still more to be done.

 

Avancerade material i fokus

A deep dive into the Swedish ecosystem for advanced materials with a focus on accelerating advanced materials to the market, in Sweden and Europe.

 

METAmeet, an international conference on Metamaterials and Nanophotonics, to be held on July 1-3 2026 in Umeå, Sweden.

Join us for three days of presentations about cutting-edge research in metamaterials, polaritonics, plasmonics and adjacent fields in the summer of 2026 in Sweden!

Please find here the link to the conference: https://umeananophotonics26.com/

 

✨ More Events

Keep an eye on our event news, and the calendars of our partners Smartare Elektroniksystem, Svensk Elektronik, European Optical Society, IEEE Sweden, and Photonics21.

📣 In case you missed it

Colloquium: Attosecond Pulses for Capturing Electron Dynamics
Anne L'Huillier, Nobel Laureate in Physics 2023, presented a Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture at AlbaNova and Nordita on 12 March 2026 in the Oscar Klein Auditorium.
Since the early 2000s, physicists have learned to generate attosecond light pulses (10⁻¹⁸ s), opening a window into the fastest processes in nature. The lecture outlined how such pulses arise from intense laser interactions with atomic gases, and how they enable direct observation of ultrafast electron dynamics, such as photoionization.
The Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture is an annual colloquium held at AlbaNova University Center, honoring Lise Meitner and supported by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

 

𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘄𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆
Space Day 2026, held on 11 March, brought together key stakeholders from across Sweden’s space sector to discuss the growing role of space in society and future strategic priorities.
The day opened with Dr. Ella Carlsson, Director General of the Swedish Space Agency, who highlighted Sweden’s continued investments in space data, advanced technologies, research, education, and the development of a national satellite programme.
In the afternoon, discussions shifted toward the future of the Swedish space sector, with particular focus on space data as a strategic asset. Speakers highlighted how Swedish organizations are leveraging space-based data for innovation, research, and societal benefit.

Renew your personal membership in PhotonicSweden/Become a member

Personal, pensioner and student members are receiving an automatic membership to Svenska Optiksällskapet and European Optical Society, as well as a discounted rate at our annual conference.

Are you a PhotonicSweden member and want to be featured in upcoming newsletters, or in the Partner News section on our website? Reach out to [email protected]!

Connect with us on Bluesky

To further encourage respectful and democratic exchange within the Photonics community, we have established an official presence on Bluesky. We invite you to connect with us there and take part in open, constructive dialogue. @photonicsweden.bsky.social 

Until next time,

/PhotonicSweden