In a quiet laboratory, bursts of ultrafast laser light are etching humanity’s information deep inside glass, layer by layer, voxel by voxel. Long after today’s hard drives and magnetic tapes have failed, this glass may still faithfully preserve our data, readable thousands of years into the future.

In this episode of Rays and Waves, Daniel and Steven dive into Microsoft Research’s Project Silica with their Senior Optical Engineer James Clegg. This is an ambitious effort to redefine cold data storage using focused femtosecond lasers. By writing information as sub‑micron, laser‑induced modifications to optical properties in hundreds of stacked layers, Project Silica turns glass into a truly three‑dimensional memory medium. These tiny structures are projected to remain stable for over 10,000 years and can be read out at any time using wide‑field microscopy combined with powerful machine‑learning algorithms.

Our conversation explores the physics behind laser‑matter interactions, the optical engineering challenges of writing and reading data in three dimensions, and what it takes to scale such a radical storage technology. We also discuss why long‑term archival storage matters, how this approach compares to traditional media, and what it means to build technology with millennia‑long time horizons.

Project Silica has been under development at Microsoft for nearly a decade, and the team recently published a comprehensive open‑access Nature paper detailing this remarkable achievement: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10042-w

If you enjoy the show, share it with your colleagues, subscribe, and leave us a review! Got thoughts or questions? Reach out at rays.and.waves.podcast@gmail.com

Intro music is Good Vibe by Twisterium. Thanks for the great tunes!

Outro music is Aranas Ananas with James Clegg on drums!

1.3 billion years ago, two black holes collided in a distant galaxy, sending ripples through the fabric of spacetime. On September 14, 2015, those ripples finally reached Earth and humanity detected gravitational waves for the very first time.

In this episode of Rays and Waves, Daniel and Steven sit down with Dr. Gabriele Vajente, Deputy Head of Systems Science and Engineering at LIGO, who was a postdoc on the project during that historic detection. For more than fifteen years, Gabriele has been at the center of the groundbreaking technologies and discoveries that have opened an entirely new window on the universe.

We explore how LIGO’s exquisitely sensitive instruments can measure distortions thousands of times smaller than a proton, the optical engineering innovations that make it possible, and what gravitational-wave astronomy reveals about some of the most violent events in the cosmos. At the heart of it all are the people like Gabriele who’ve dedicated decades to pushing physics and engineering to their limits.

If you enjoy the show, share it with your colleagues, subscribe, and leave us a review! Got thoughts or questions? Reach out at rays.and.waves.podcast@gmail.com

Intro music is Good Vibe by Twisterium. Thanks for the great tunes!

In this episode of Rays and Waves, Daniel and Steven take a nostalgic dive back into the world where they both began their scientific journeys: optical tweezers. These remarkable tools, using tightly focused laser beams to exert forces and torques on microscopic objects, have transformed how we manipulate cells, DNA, bacteria, and so much more. Their invention by Arthur Ashkin in 1986 ultimately earned him the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, and today, optical manipulation stands as a thriving field with thousands of active researchers.

Our guest is one of its true pioneers. For more than four decades, Halina Rubinsztein‑Dunlop has been at the forefront of exploring how light can push, twist, and guide matter. Her work spans quantum optics, optically driven micromachines, and cutting‑edge applications in biological systems. Her impact has been recognized at the highest levels, including the SPIE Gold Medal (the society’s most prestigious honor), and she will soon serve as an SPIE Director for the 2026–2028 term.

Halina is also a powerful advocate for women in science, a topic we excitedly dive into during our conversation.

If you enjoy the show, share it with your colleagues, subscribe, and leave us a review! Got thoughts or questions? Reach out at rays.and.waves.podcast@gmail.com

Intro music is Good Vibe by Twisterium. Thanks for the great tunes!