Book excerpt: This book presents a current review ofphotonic technologies and their applications. The papers published in this book are extended versions of the papers presented at the Inter national Conference on Applications ofPhotonic Technology (ICAPT'96) held in Montreal, Canada, on July 29 to August 1, 1996. The theme of this event was "Closing the Gap Between Theory, Developments and Applications. " The term photonics covers both optics and optical engineering areas of growing sci entific and commercial importance throughout the world. It is estimated that photonic tech nology-related applications to increase exponentially over the next few years and will play a significant role in the global economy by reaching a quarter of a trillion of US dollars by the year 2000. The global interest and advancements of this technology are represented in this book, where leading scientists of twenty-two countries with advanced technology in photon ics present their latest results. The papers selected herein are grouped to address six distinct areas ofphotonic tech nology. The reader will find throughout the book a combination of invited and contributed papers which reflect the state of the art today and provide some insight about the future of this technology. The first two papers are invited. They discuss business aspects ofphotonic engineer ing. One examines if chip-to-chip interconnections by means of optical technology are a good economic choice, while the other discusses the photonic technology from entre preneurial viewpoint. Papers related to materials and considered for photonic applications, e. g.