Ihor Liubeka’s plans for the coming year have to consider something likely alien to everyone else in this year’s Photonics100 – operating in a war zone. Liubeka is chief technical officer of Cris-Teh, a manufacturer of tellerium dioxide (TeO2) for acousto-optic and polarising optic applications. The company is based in Dnipro, Ukraine, which has suffered several missile attacks and dozens of deaths since the Russian invasion.

“I am very proud that even during the war, we in Ukraine are working and developing certain areas of photonics,” he says.