Better healthcare and optimized process industry with fiber optics 

How can Fiber Optics improve healthcare or the environment? Walter Margulis, one of Sweden’s most well-known scientists in fiber optics answers some hot questions in this interview.

• Hi Walter! You are one of Sweden’s most well-known scientists in Fiber Optics and you work at Acreo. What’s hot in your research area right now?

The most exciting right now is our work on how to control light in a fiber. If we manage to control that, we will for example use it to study biological processes. We would be able to excite samples and probe them optically in a new way. For example, we would be able to measure inside a living body how cells respond to optical pulses over time.

• In what way can research within Fiber Optic help to improve the environment?

Fiber optics has applications in all kinds of areas! That’s what makes it so interesting and important. When it comes to the environment I would say Fiber Optics can help us to minimize the damage! For example, Fiber optics can be a tool to optimize power lines, optimize process industry, measure the gas distribution in a refinery and measure all kind of processes that occur at high temperatures.

• How does your research stand internationally?

When it comes to the possibility of controlling light in a fiber we are a leading group. In other areas we are just in the beginning. Everything depends on how much resources we have in the different areas and what we focus on. Some of our focus areas are on applications within process and production industry and life science.

• What is the best about being a scientist at Acreo?

As a scientist at Acreo you work very close to the industry and our role is to benefit society with our research. This is why we carry out the research! At Acreo we get the best out of two worlds, we do research with focus on benefits for industry and society.

• What do you hope that your section has accomplished in five years and where are you heading then?

In five years we will be able to control light easily in a fiber by simply connecting a fiber to a computer.

Another thing is that I hope we have come far in life-sciences and that we have contributed to better diagnostics and treatments in healthcare. By controlling light in a fiber we will be able to contribute to better microscopes, which is the aim of our new European project.

• How many people work at your department?

We are about 16 persons.

• What’s the best part of your job?

It’s to do research within areas where no one has been before, and to invent and sometimes discover new things!