International Day of Light Celebrations at TIFRH
Last week, TIFR Hyderabad was abuzz with students, researchers, and science enthusiasts as the institute hosted a packed lineup of events celebrating the International Day of Light 2026. The week brought together scientific outreach, entrepreneurship, industry interaction, and interdisciplinary collaboration through a series of engaging programmes and workshops.
The celebrations began with the Science-Enterprise Translation & Unison (SETU) meeting, which brought together researchers and industry representatives to encourage networking and collaboration. The event showcased a range of scientific instrumentation developed in-house, including a Quantum Positioning System developed in collaboration with QuBeats, a cost-effective wavemeter, next-generation battery technologies such as zinc-air, anode-free lithium, and metal batteries, as well as XRF and metal thin-film DC sputter coating systems. M. Krishnamurthy (Director, TIFRH) and Karthik Raman (Faculty, TIFRH) also spoke about the Quantum Foundry initiative aimed at building advanced quantum hardware infrastructure.
This was followed by a two-day “Entrepreneurship for Scientists” workshop conducted in collaboration with Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH). Over the course of the workshop, participants from TIFR Hyderabad attended sessions on design thinking and storytelling, interacted with experts from the field, and learned how to pitch startup ideas effectively.
The International Day of Light celebrations, organised by the TIFR NeST Student Chapter with generous support from the Optica Foundation and SPIE, took place on 16–17 May 2026. The two-day event focused strongly on scientific outreach, interactive learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community engagement, highlighting the importance of light and light-based technologies in science, education, innovation, and society.
The celebrations commenced on 16 May with a large-scale outreach exhibition that hosted 100+ participants. The exhibition featured a wide range of interactive demonstrations designed to communicate concepts in optics, photonics, and electromagnetism in an engaging and accessible manner. Visitors explored demonstrations including a laser harp, dancing laser patterns, diffraction and interference experiments, total internal reflection, fluorescence of DNA and tonic water, optical communication systems, infrared imaging, solar cell demonstrations, Young’s double slit experiment, electromagnetic detection, particle size determination using light scattering, Michelson interferometry, and Schlieren imaging. The outreach programme also included a drone workshop and a quantum sensing demonstration, introducing participants to emerging technologies and modern applications of photonics. The highly interactive nature of the event fostered curiosity-driven scientific engagement among attendees from diverse backgrounds. Following this, Prof. Mustansir Barma (Professor Emeritus, TIFRH) discussed what a career in science looks like and the progress of TIFR over the years in a talk titled ‘Science: What, How, Who?’
On 17 May, the TIFR NeST Student Chapter hosted an Interchapter meet with 20 participants from Mahindra University, Vidya Jyothi Institute of Technology, IITH, UoH, BITS Hyderabad taking part in discussions and networking sessions . The meet served as a platform to strengthen interactions between student communities working in optics, photonics, and related interdisciplinary areas. The academic sessions featured a technical talk by Ashutosh Richhariya on “Laser Generation and Beam Delivery Systems,” where he discussed industrial laser technologies, beam engineering, and practical applications of photonics. This was followed by a lecture by Anusha Shankar titled “Lights to Save the Dark,” which explored the role of light-based approaches in ecological and environmental studies. The event also included a proposal presentation by the INPS Hyderabad Regional Committee, encouraging greater collaboration and participation among regional student groups
