The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded an $8 million, four-year, basic-research program grant to the California Institute of Technology to initiate research in photonics technologies. The technical focus of the effort will be on optofluidics, an exciting new research area based on the use of microfluidic devices to control optical processes, and which is expected to result in a new generation of small-scale, highly adaptable, and innovative optical devices.