Specialty Grand Challenges in Optoelectronics

In 1638, the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei designed one of the first experiments attempting to measure the speed of light (Foschi and Leone, 2009). Although the test was not conclusive, it reinforced the hypothesis that light could have a finite speed. The speed limit was one of the key steps toward understanding the elusive nature of light and the complex phenomena that surrounds lightmatter interaction. Much later, it was demonstrated that when light (and any electromagnetic radiation in general) interacts with matter, it might induce a flow of electrons. Symmetrically, a flow of electrons within matter might generate electromagnetic radiation. We call optoelectronics “the study and the application of the phenomena, materials, and devices involved with the interaction between electrons within a material or a device and the absorption or emission of electromagnetic radiation from the same” (Koch, 2014). Optoelectronic is essential in modern life, and it will become increasingly more important in future because technological development is relying more and more on the diffusion of devices that source, detect, and control electromagnetic radiation. X-ray, ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light optoelectronics are the most relevant. They are involved in a large number of applications in many relevant fields of technological development, including but not limited to Energy, Medicine, Architecture, Communication, Robotics, Transport, Security, and Entertainment. Below we report some examples of applications representative of the fields listed above (Figure 1).