Dominika gave up climbing to climb the sctientific ladder. Michał is a fan of dark chocolate (of course, for scientific reasons), and in his spare time, he’s finishing a program to calculate ray tracing through a lens.

As part of the Photonics Day 2024 celebrations, young scientists from the Infrared Photonics Group at Łukasiewicz-IMiF took part in a special project and answered 10 questions about their work in photonics and what inspires them in their daily research challenges. In short films, available to watch today on YouTube, our young researcher Dominika Niewczas and young researcher Michał Nagowski share their experiences, passions, and thoughts on photonics. They also revealed who inspires them and who they would have become if they hadn’t chosen the scientific path.

Today – October 21 – we celebrate International Photonics Day. On this day in 1983, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) approved the current value of the speed of light in a vacuum: 299,792.458 km/s.

This day aims to raise awareness about the importance of light in our lives and encourage young people to pursue careers in this field. Photonics plays a key role in technologies that make our lives easier every day – from high-speed fiber optic internet to precise lasers used in medical surgeries.

Watch and get inspired. The work in photonics laboratories awaits!