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• KVH wins $3.5 million FOG order to enhance remote weapon stations
  January 5, 2009--KVH Industries, Inc. (Middletown, RI), says it has received a $3.5 million contract for precision fiber optic gyros (FOGs), which it will begin shipping this quarter, for use in remote stabilized weapon systems.
• Inability of 2D human retina to specify direction in 3D space produces optical illusions, say researchers
  January 5, 2009--Researchers at Duke University (Durham, NC) have issued a new study that helps explain why a person observing an object through an aperture sees movement differently than when looking at the same object directly. They suggest that we perceive such peculiar effects because the projection of light onto a 2-D retina cannot specify the direction of objects moving in 3-D space.
• Strain-adjusted LED produces phosphor-free white light
  January 2, 2009--Researchers at Peking University (Beijing, China) are crafting phosphor-free gallium nitride based white LEDs that rely on a "strain adjusting" indium gallium arsenide (InGaN) interlayer to produce blue and yellow luminescence.
• Spectrophotometry improves detection of colon cancer
  December 31, 2008--Medical device company SpectraScience (San Diego, CA) announced that the significant rate of missed cancers during colonoscopies may be greatly improved by the use of its spectrophotometric WavSTAT Optical Biopsy System. A recent Canadian study shows the limitations of colonoscopies in detecting cancer, and reports that the procedure may detect polyps and early cancerous tissue only 60-70% of the time.
• MIRTHE researchers see second beam, find new laser
  December 24, 2008--Researchers at the Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE) center at Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) have discovered what they say is a new type of lasing mechanism, which they came across while experimenting with quantum-cascade (QC) lasers.
• IMEC builds 11 megapixel micromirror array for industrial applications
  December 23, 2008--Nanoelectronics and nanotechnology research group IMEC (Leuven, Belgium) has built a monolithically integrated 11 megapixel micromirror array for high-end industrial applications--a world first both in terms of pixel density and reliability. Each mirror in the array is 8 µm x 8µm and can be individually tilted by the high-speed integrated CMOS circuitry underneath the array.
• OSU announces breakthrough in metamaterials research
  December 16, 2008--Researchers at Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR) say they have solved a significant challenge with photonic metamaterials, discovering a way to prevent the loss of light as it passes through these materials, according to an article at www.democratherald.com. The advance, made by scientists from Oregon State University and Norfolk State University, was just published in Physical Review Letters.
• Technion researchers first to observe Magnus (spin Hall) effect in light
  December 12, 2008--Researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology, or Technion (Haifa, Israel) are the first to observe the Magnus effect in light, potentially opening a new avenue for controlling light in nanometer-scale optical devices. In addition, their experimental discovery provides a more precise way to study important physical behavior that until now could only be observed in relatively complex, messy condensed-matter systems.
• Edmund Optics doubles precision-asphere production capacity
  December 10, 2008--Edmund Optics (EO; Barrington, NJ) has added new aspheric polishing equipment to its manufacturing facility in Pennsburg, PA, effectively doubling its precision aspheric manufacturing capacity.
• Avalanche photodiode from Intel further advances silicon photonics
  December 9, 2008--Intel (Santa Clara, CA) researchers have achieved world-record performance using a silicon-based avalanche photodetector (APD) that they say could lower costs and improve performance as compared to commercially available optical devices. The research results were published December 7 in Nature Photonics.