10Events
3Academic years
100%Free to attend
Most events are free to book on our Eventbrite page 🎟️ — follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn for everything else!
2026 – 2027
Our 2026 – 2027 events are being planned! Follow us on Eventbrite and LinkedIn to be the first to know.
2025 – 2026
13 – 16 October 2026
Hacking Smart Homes with UCLightCommands × Thorlabs
A week of live demos with the Thorlabs Mobile Photonics Bike, featuring our very own UCLightCommands demo. It closed with a seminar session on photonics and education starring Bill Warger, Director of Photonics Education at Thorlabs. 🎤
Across UCL campus
14 August 2026
UCLightCommands Hackathon × Thorlabs
10 students, from undergrads to postdocs, designed a new demo with Thorlabs based on the LightCommands study: hacking microphones with a modulated laser. Showcased in October, and v2 is on its way! 🚀
University College London
21 July 2026
Laser 2000 — Photonics solutions showcase
Walk-in event to meet the Laser 2000 team: optical filtering, fibre inspection and lab automation.
UCL Engineering Front Building, Foyer G02
16 January 2026
Laser 2000 — Networking & Photonics equipment showcase
Linear stages, laser diodes, network test equipment, Moku devices… and Lego merch! 60 sign-ups.
Malet Place Engineering Building, 6th floor lobby
2 December 2025
Moku:Delta Showcase + Q&A lunch
FPGA-based, software-defined test & measurement with Liquid Instruments and Laser 2000.
Roberts Building, Barlow Room
22 – 23 October 2025
Thorlabs Mobile Photonics Lab @ UCL
Two days of live Optical Coherence Tomography demos. 52 sign-ups, likely 80+ attendees.
Malet Place Engineering Building, 6.02
15 October 2025
Laser Physics & PICWave Workshop
Hands-on photonic system design workshop led by experts from Photon Design.
Malet Place Engineering Building, 2.142024 – 2025
6 May 2025
UK/EU PIC design with GDSFactory
Hybrid workshop (Python & no-code) across 7 universities in the UK and EU. 157 sign-ups!
Hybrid, 7 universities
28 November 2024
Good Practices for Reproducible Open Source Code
Lecture by a staff engineer at Xelix, followed by a hands-on lab cleaning up a messy codebase.
1-19 Torrington Place
14 November 2024
Laser-Cut Pizza Social
A slice of our upcoming workshops & events — with pizza! 🍕 50 attendees.
Roberts Building, Barlow RoomLooking for more detail? Our 2025 – 2026 and 2024 – 2025 annual reports cover every event, including talks and poster presentations.
Coming up: projects
UCL Photonics Society’s ongoing and past projects will soon be listed here.
Photonic IC design
Tutorials and workflows for designing photonic integrated circuits with open-source tools such as GDSFactory.
Reproducible code
Guides to good practices for open-source scientific code, from our hands-on workshops.
Hackathon
Our upcoming research-focused hackathon for hands-on, interdisciplinary collaboration.
Got an idea?
Want to start or showcase a photonics project with the society? Get in touch or message us on LinkedIn — we’d love to hear from you! 💡