The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has partnered with SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, to initiate a new lighting conference dedicated to the advancement and use of 3D printing for the manufacture of lighting components and systems. The conference will be held as part of SPIE Optics + Photonics 2023, the leading multidisciplinary optical sciences and technology meeting, August 20-24, 2023, in San Diego, Calif.

Nadarajah Narendran, Ph.D., LRC director of research and co-chair of the conference, said the reason for initiating this conference now is to bring knowledge of this quickly advancing technology to a larger audience who could benefit from learning more about the potential of 3D printing for the lighting industry.

“Our goal is to bring awareness of the possibilities that 3D printing holds for lighting, to prompt new research in this field, and to help both lighting manufacturers and 3D printing technology manufacturers to work together,” said Dr. Narendran.

The conference committee, made up of international leaders from both academia and industry, is currently seeking abstracts from both lighting and 3D printing experts to present at the August conference. Abstract topics may include an overview of the state-of-the-art of 3D printing for lighting; design and digital tools to support adoption of 3D printing; uses of 3D printing relevant to lighting; applications and cases studies; and additional relevant topics.

Dr. Narendran noted that there are many areas where 3D printing is being explored and tested that are relevant to lighting but are not currently applied to that field, such as 3D printing of heat sinks, optics, and electronics. “We are definitely seeking abstracts from those who have conducted research in these areas that can be relevant to lighting, even if lighting was not considered the original application,” he said.

In addition to being part of the in-person program at Optics + Photonics, research presented at the new conference will also be published as part of the official proceedings in the SPIE Digital Library. Home to the world’s largest collection of optics and photonics applied research, the SPIE Digital Library comprises more than 560,000 publications including journal articles, conference proceedings and presentations, and eBooks.

Abstracts for the conference are due March 8. For details, please visit the LRC’s conference webpage at https://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/3DConference.asp and SPIE’s Call for Papers webpage at https://spie.org/OP318.