Meet the Jury Marcos Katz on From Optical Wireless Communications to Photonic Ecosystems: Current Research and Future Directions

Arenberg Doctoral School is proud to invite you to Meet The Jury!

When internationally renowned experts visit KU Leuven as a member of a PhD Examination Committee, we like to seize this opportunity to give this expert a forum to a large audience. All members of Science, Engineering & Technology are most welcome to the Meet The Jury Lectures.

Prof. Marcos Katz (University of Oulu, Finland) will give a lecture on “From Optical Wireless Communications to Photonic Ecosystems: Current Research and Future Directions”.

Towards photonic ecosystems that communicate, power, sense, and interact
The deployment of solid-state lighting has created a global infrastructure whose potential extends far beyond illumination. What began as a revolution in lighting technology has enabled the emergence of optical wireless communications, transforming light sources into communication platforms and paving the way for new services and applications. Today, research in the field is moving beyond the traditional boundaries of visible light communications and LiFi towards a broader vision in which light becomes a fundamental resource for communication, energy delivery, sensing, localization, and interaction. The talk begins with an overview of the evolution of optical wireless communications, from LiFi and hybrid optical-radio networking to emerging applications that extend the role of light beyond data connectivity. While LiFi has demonstrated its potential as a complementary wireless access technology, many of the most exciting opportunities lie beyond connectivity alone. The presentation explores how optical technologies can support sustainable Internet of Things deployments through light-based IoT, energy-autonomous devices, printed electronics, and hybrid communication architectures. Particular attention is given to the concept of energy networking, where energy becomes a manageable network resource that can be harvested, transferred, shared, and scheduled across distributed systems. The talk also discusses the emerging field of optical communications through biological tissue, including the use of near-infrared light for data and energy transfer to implantable devices and the role of hybrid wireless body area networks in future healthcare applications. In parallel, advances in optical sensing are transforming lighting infrastructures into distributed sensing platforms capable of supporting localization, environmental awareness, activity recognition, and intelligent services. Looking further ahead, the presentation introduces the concept of photonic ecosystems, in which solid-state lighting infrastructures evolve into multifunctional and multiservice platforms that seamlessly integrate illumination, communications, energy delivery, sensing, localization, and interaction within a common intelligent infrastructure. This vision opens new research challenges at the intersection of communications, photonics, electronics, networking, artificial intelligence, and sustainability, while offering a glimpse of how future environments may be designed around light as a pervasive digital resource. Ultimately, the transition from optical wireless communications to photonic ecosystems represents a shift from using light as a communication medium to harnessing light as a fundamental resource for creating sustainable, intelligent, and interactive environments.

Following the lecture, there will be opportunity for young researchers to interact with him.

• Venue: ELEC 91.B200 (Elektrotechnisch Instituut, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, 3001 Heverlee)
• Date: 28 September 2026 – 11:00-12:00
• Prof. Marcos Katz is visiting KU Leuven on the occasion of the PhD defence of Khodr Hammoud