V4F continues to build momentum within the photonics community, with recent contributions showcased at ICOAM2026 and OPD2026 highlighting the breadth and depth of ongoing research. These events provided a valuable platform not only to present cutting-edge results, but also to engage with the global community working at the forefront of OAM photonics and high-power laser systems. Advancing OAM Photonics for High-Power Applications At ICOAM2026, V4F researchers presented a seri

February once again saw the world celebrate the “International Day of Women in Girls in Science”. Within the V4F project, we feel proud to have two amazing female researchers as part of our team: Our coordinator Regina Gumenyuk, head of the “Advanced Coherent Sources” group at Tampere University, and Katrin Wondraczek, head of the “Optical Fiber Materials and Structures” group at Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technologies. Both are outstanding researchers and have faced chal

In the second week of February, the V4F consortium held their penultimate in-person consortium meeting in the beautiful city of Edinburgh in Scotland. Over two days, we had many open discussions of progress and challenges we have encountered, making an honest assessment of our limitations. Our shared focus remains on turning complex physics into measurable progress. We’ve made strong progress across several fronts, from advancing orbital angular momentum (OAM) generation and

As the year draws to a close, the V4F consortium is looking back on an extremely busy year. Here are some of our highlights: The year kicked off with a bang: Laser Focus World included V4F in their January article " The quest for laser fusion fuels intensifies ", highlighting the importance of our work on novel borane targets for nuclear fusion Our third peer-reviewed publication was published: " Interaction of Laguerre-Gaussian laser pulses with borane targets of different h