Dr. Sergei Mikhailov and Dr. Mehrdad Lotfi Choobbari received FWO Junior Postdoc Fellowships for groundbreaking research in fiber sensing and PFAS water detection.

Shahabhas successfully defended his PhD thesis on harnessing nonlinear dynamics in multi-wavelength on-chip lasers for all-optical signal processing, paving the way for faster, energy-efficient photonic networks.

Arash’s PhD research advanced nanophotonic platforms for bacterial screening, enabling faster and more accurate pathogen detection.

PhotonHub PHACTORY, funded by the EU and led by VUB, offers €15M in support to help companies innovate with photonics through expert guidance, top labs, and up to 85% subsidies.

Professor Lien Smeesters from B-PHOT co-authors a new roadmap in IOP JPhys Photonics, outlining how photonics can drive innovation in food quality, safety, and sustainability.

B-PHOT researcher Nathalie Vermeulen serves as general chair at key meetings during CLEO-Europe and OPTICA Advanced Photonics Congresses, welcoming new research submissions.

Parliamentarians De Roo and Poelaert explore the role of photonics in high-tech innovation during a visit to VUB B-PHOT’s Photonics Innovation Campus in Pajottegem.

B-PHOT researchers demonstrated that two-photon polymerization (2PP) enables fast, high-quality 3D nanostructures for advanced metasurfaces. Their work, featured in Optics in 2024 by OSA, showcases high-resolution meta-lenses printed on optical fibers, comparing their performance to traditional lenses.

Tigran Baghdasaryan and his B-PHOT team won Best Paper Award at SPIE Photonics West 2025 for their work on 3D-printed triangular cross-section MMI couplers in polymer photonics. Their research, published in Laser & Photonics Reviews, advances compact and efficient photonic circuit design.

Prof. Yunfeng Nie from Brussels Photonics (VUB) has been named a Rising Star in Optics 2024 by the Journal of Optics for her contributions to research, education, and outreach. Specializing in computational optics, she focuses on AI-driven, physics-aware optical design and freeform optics.

Mehrdad Lotfi Choobbari has successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled 'Illuminating the invisible: Unveiling microplastics in water through advanced optical techniques' under the supervision of Prof. Heidi Ottevaere, Prof. Wendy Meulebroeck and Dr. Tatevik Chalyan.

Vrije Universiteit Brussel and its renowned B-PHOT Brussels Photonics research team hosted a landmark event at Square Brussels to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its pioneering master’s programme in photonics. This milestone celebration marked three decades of excellence in photonics research and education, bringing together international alumni, distinguished speakers, and key industry figures for a night of reflection, learning, and networking.