Starting from optics/photonics. How far can I go?

I am an optical/photonics engineer. The reason I started PhotonCap was simple. I wanted to see how the lasers, optical fibers, and transceivers I have worked with every day get priced in the stock market. When someone who knows the defect density of an InP epi wafer looks at the stock price of the company that makes it, sometimes you can see things the market is missing. That was the starting point.

The glass substrate investment map was optics. CPO transceivers, SiPh, InP lasers. Right in the center of what I do. The LEO satellite map was a step further out. The optical component inside an OISL terminal is my territory, but orbital mechanics and launch vehicle economics are not. The subsea cable map went further still. The III-V pump laser inside an EDFA repeater is my territory, but the cable-laying vessel market and national security framing are not.

To be honest, there are limits to interpreting fields outside my expertise from a perspective that is also outside my expertise. I can find the number that says 60 cable-laying vessels exist worldwide, but someone in the shipbuilding industry understands the operating economics of a single vessel better than I do. I can back-calculate that NEC’s subsea revenue is in the single-digit percentage range, but an analyst covering Japanese IT conglomerates will do a better job valuing that business unit than I can.

Sometimes subscribers reach out. “Analyze XX purely from XX perspective.” When I get these requests, it weighs on my conscience. Is it right to publish analysis, behind a paywall, on a topic where I am not certain whether my interpretation is correct or not?

So I thought about it seriously.

Here is what I can and cannot do. Explaining why a material is a bottleneck at the optical component tier, why a process is difficult, why a qualification takes years. That is something I can do. Macro, geopolitics, valuation models, shipbuilding, power infrastructure. These are areas where I have no hands-on engineering experience. In these areas, I am a researcher reading and cross-checking public sources, not a practitioner with field experience.

Until now, I have mostly interpreted things through an optics lens. Going forward, I want to widen the aperture slightly, expanding from optics into a broader engineering perspective. Not just photonics, but compound semiconductor manufacturing, packaging, system integration, reliability testing. A wider engineering layer for looking at supply chains, while being clear about which layers I have touched firsthand and which I have not.

What changes is the scope. What does not change is the principle. Primary sources first. Limits of inference stated explicitly. When I do not know, I say I do not know. That stays the same.

I am continuing to think about the topics you have been requesting. Within the range I can cover, I will write as honestly as I can.

Best Regards,

PhotonCap