The photonics industry is clearly trending towards rapidly increasing production scale, with three orders of magnitude expected in the near future. Whether the challenge is economical, scalable manufacturing of multichannel silicon photonic (SiPh) devices, assembling increasingly sophisticated miniature cameras, or transmitting high-speed data across thousands of miles of space: Alignment is crucial for effectiveness, performance, and practicality. As photonics increasingly includes end-consumer and point-of-care applications, wearables will become a commodity. Read more