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Photonics Industry News

• USDA picks Headwall's spectral imagers for food inspection and safety
  January 2, 2009--Headwall Photonics (Fitchburg, MA) announced the formation of a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the USDA Agricultural Research Service (Washington, DC) to develop and deploy spectral-imaging hardware for in-line processing of poultry, fruit, vegetables, and other food products.
• Advanced Photonix subsidiary Picometrix wins more terahertz contracts
  December 31, 2008--Advanced Photonix announced that its subsidiary, Picometrix (Ann Arbor, MI), was selected to received a Phase II SBIR contract from NASA and a Phase I SBIR contract from the U.S. Air Force for nondestructive testing (NDT) applications development utilizing the T-Ray 4000 terahertz system. The combined contracts total $700,000.
• LEDs to illuminate bigger and better New Year's Eve ball in Times Square
  December 30, 2008--The New York Post reports that "Everything else in the economy may be shrinking, but there's one thing that's getting bigger: the ball that drops on New Year's Eve." On Nov. 11, Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment revealed a new ball that's double the size of previous balls at 12 feet in diameter and weighs nearly six tons--all being lit from within by thousands of light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
• Medical imaging company acquires Axsun Technologies for its OCT expertise
  December 30, 2008--Volcano Corporation (San Diego, CA), developer of products for the diagnosis and treatment of coronary and peripheral artery disease, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Axsun Technologies (Billerica, MA), a privately held company that develops lasers and optical engines used in optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging systems and photonic components and subsystems used in other industrial applications.
• Semiconductor lasers enable high-rate quality random-number generation
  December 29, 2008--Sequences of random numbers are vital to such applications as computer simulations, statistics, and cryptography--but current methods of generating them are challenged by increasing data-processing demands. Now a group of Japanese scientists has found that the physical chaos present in semiconductor lasers can produce good-quality random number sequences at 1.7 Gbps; the team predicts laser-based schemes as high as 10 Gbps in the future.
• Group sets record for optical delay with new nanocavity-array waveguide
  December 29, 2008--At NTT Basic Research Laboratories (Atsugi, Japan), scientists have developed a waveguide--an array of more than 100 photonic crystal cavities--capable of slowing light to one-hundredth its normal speed. The coupled optical microresonator shows promise for advanced signal processing and optical memory applications.
• MODIS data: cosmic rays do not explain global warming
  December 24, 2008--The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), a spectral instrument built by Raytheon (El Segundo, CA) and sent into space on the Earth Observing System (EOS) Terra and Aqua satellites, has provided data for a new study that supports earlier findings by stating that changes in cosmic rays most likely do not contribute to climate change.
• Rensselaer researchers reveal vision for lighting revolution
  December 23, 2008--Innovations in photonics and solid-state lighting will lead to trillions of dollars in cost savings, along with a massive reduction in the amount of energy required to light homes and businesses around the globe--a lighting revolution--according to two professors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in their paper entitled "Transcending the replacement paradigm of solid-state lighting," to be published in the Dec. 22, 2008 issue of Optics Express.
• Researchers demo spinning mirror-based interactive volumetric display system
  December 22, 2008--Researchers at USC's (Los Angeles, CA) Institute for Creative Technologies have developed and demonstrated a "hologram-like" 3D videoconferencing system. The system displays a three-dimensional image of a speaker in real time and enables two-way communication between the image and observers. The display accurately reproduces the image as it would appear from different points of view.
• Communications test & measurement segment leader to become JDSU's new President and CEO
  December 22, 2008--JDSU (Milpitas, CA) has promoted Thomas Waechter to president and chief executive officer effective January 1. Waechter, who will also serve on JDSU's Board of Directors, is currently president of the company's largest business segment, Communications Test and Measurement. He joined JDSU in 2007 after serving as CEO for three public companies. He plans to focus JDSU to support its customer base and ensure joint success.