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INTERVIEW
SPIE director onChina’s growing role in photonics
Our pick of the hot technologies in the year ahead
2005 SNAPSHOT
NIGHT VISION:WHAT’S AROUND THE CORNER?
PHOTONICS IN THE CAR
The European magazine for photonics professionals
January 2005 Issue 124
INSIDEPHOTONICS WESTSHOW PREVIEW
NEWS5 Business Bookham axes former HQ • Europe dominates laser
display awards for 2004 • Studios split over DVD standards
9 Analysis New battles in telecoms market
10 Leader Happy New Year from the OLE team
TECHNOLOGY11 Applications Optical sensor cleans up car fumes • Holey
VSCELs produce high powers • LEDs light up New York Christmas
13 R&D Pressure tunes diode laser 700 nm • A new way to transmit terahertz waves • Optical clock makes precision leap
15 Patents Femtosecond specialists settle IP dispute
FEATURES17 SPIE hits the golden fifty
SPIE sees its 50th anniversary this year. Oliver Graydon spoke to Eugene Arthurs, the society’s executive director, about the year ahead and international trends in optics.
19 The science of making moneyThinking of starting up your own business? David Parker, CEO offibre-laser specialist Southampton Photonics, offers some valuable advice.
23 Car industry drives down the cost of night visionDriving in the dark could become a lot safer if affordable night-vision systems being developed by several European projects prove popular. James Tyrrell gets the industry view at SPIE’s Photonics in the Automobile event in Geneva.
28 Hot technologies coming of ageTo celebrate the start of 2005, here’s our pick of three innovativetechnologies set to light up the year ahead. In each case, we describe their recent achievements and potential future impact.
31 Q-switches deliver powerful pulses Need powerful pulses from your free-running laser? Then purchasing a Q-switch could be the answer. Rob Swain and Robert Eckardt describe the options available.
SHOW PREVIEW35 Photonics West 2005
A snapshot of what’s happening at this year’s show in San Jose, with a look at the technical symposia and exhibitor products.
REGUL ARS20 Free Literature/Search Engine53 People54 Calendar
EDITORIALEditor Oliver GraydonTel: +44 (0)117 930 1015 [email protected]
Technology editor Jacqueline HewettTel: +44 (0)117 930 [email protected]
Reporter James TyrrellTel: +44 (0)117 930 [email protected]
Production editors Lucy Farrar, Clare SturgesTechnical illustrator Alison Tovey
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© 2005 IOP Publishing Ltd. The contents of OLE donot represent the views or policies of the Institute ofPhysics, its council or its officers unless so identified. This magazine incorporates Opto & Laser Products.Printed by Warners (Midlands) plc, The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH, UK.
I ssue 124 January 2005 Contents
Stunning displays: the ILDAreveals its 2004 awards p7
Need more power? Etchingholes in VCSELS helps p12
Big in 2005: will this be theyear fibre lasers shine? p28
Pulse production: which Q-switch do you need? p31
INTERVIEW
SPIE director onChina’s growing role in photonics
Our pick of the hot technologies in the year ahead
2005 SNAPSHOT
NIGHT VISION:WHAT’S AROUND THE CORNER?
PHOTONICS IN THE CAR
The European magazine for photonics professionals
January 2005 Issue 124
INSIDEPHOTONICS WESTSHOW PREVIEW
For the latest news on optics and photonics don’t forget to visit optics.org
Cover (BMW) The carindustry meets in Genevato discuss photonics. p23
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At the end of 2004, BookhamTechnology, the maker of opticalmodules for telecoms, announcedthat it is closing its former head-quarters near Abingdon, UK, andconsolidating its manufacturingand development facilities.
The plans are part of a new cost-reduction programme that thefirm hopes will save it an additional$6–8 m (€4.5–6 m) per quarterand move it closer to becomingprofitable. In its most recent finan-cial results (quarter ended 2 Octo-ber 2004), Bookham reported anet loss of $38 m, despite costreductions implemented last May.
The Milton Park facility nearAbingdon is Bookham’s birthplace,where it pioneered its originalapplication-specific optical circuittechnology in the 1990s. However,the company recently shifted its
worldwide headquarters to SanJose, California and changed itsfinancial domicile from the UK tothe US. The executive team at Mil-ton Park will relocate to Bookham’sCaswell site, also in the UK, thehome of the firm’s 3 inch InP chip-manufacturing facility.
In the US, Bookham will closetwo of its three current facilities inthe San Jose area, with operations
at the former Onetta and Ignis sitesmoving to the Junction Avenueheadquarters acquired throughthe takeover of New Focus.
Bookham did not disclose thelevel of its workforce reduction, andsays it is currently “in the process ofconsultation” with employees. Thecompany has estimated that it willincur a cash charge of $4–5 m foremployee redundancies.
Acquisition shakes up eye surgery
Bookham decidesto axe former HQ
NEWSBUSINESS 5 ANALYSIS 9 LEADER 10
5OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
Advanced Medical Optics (AMO),the US provider of ophthalmologyequipment and eyecare products,is acquiring VISX, the laser eyesurgery specialist, in a deal valuedat $1.3 bn (€1 bn).
The deal creates an enterprisethat will be one of the world’s lead-ing suppliers of refractive surgeryequipment. The new firm willretain the name AMO and itsheadquarters will be located inSanta Ana, California, US.
VISX shareholders will receive0.552 shares of AMO stock and$3.50 in cash for each VISX sharethat they own. The total purchaseequates to approximately 29 mil-lion shares of AMO stock and$184 m in cash.
“AMO and VISX represent anexciting combination of talent,technology, customer knowledgeand growth potential,” said JimMazzo, AMO’s CEO. “ Adding their[VISX’s] robust product platformto our existing refractive business
represents a bold step forward toachieving one of AMO’s strategicgoals: to build a leading refractivesurgical business.”
VISX was founded in 1998 to selllaser systems for treating defectivevision and has since captured 60%of the US market and installed more
than 1300 of its STAR laser sys-tems. The firm claims that fivemillion laser vision-correction pro-cedures have been performedworldwide using its laser system,and more than 8000 eyecare pro-fessionals have themselves beentreated. For the financial quarter
ended 30 September 2004, the firmreported a net income of $11.3 mon a revenue of $38.7 m.
AMO was created in 2002 as aspin-off from the US firm Allergan.It specializes in supplying equip-ment for cataract removal, micro-keratomes to remove a flap of thecornea during LASIK lasersurgery, and solutions for contact-lens care. In 2003, it reported anannual revenue of $602 m. Byeliminating areas of the overlapbetween itself and VISX, AMOexpects cost savings of between$10 and $15 m in 2005, and toachieve sales approaching 1 bn. ● At the time of going to press,OLE learned that VISX’s CustomVue procedure has become thefirst US-approved wavefront-guided laser system for treatingfar-sightedness and astigmatism.The system captures a “finger-print” of each eye and creates acustomized treatment for improv-ing the individual’s vision.
Thanks to its acquisition of VISX, AMO is set to become a leader in laser eye surgery.
Two major consumer electronicsfirms, Sharp of Japan and Loewe ofGermany, are teaming up to targetthe European market for LCD TVs.Sharp is investing €15 m inLoewe, increasing its stake in thebusiness from 8.9 to 29%, and thetwo firms are creating a “jointEuropean development centre” inKronach, Germany.
The centre will focus on the Euro-pean broadcasting standard for dig-ital television as well as developing acompletely digital electronics plat-form for LCD TVs and an integratedreceiver for high-definition TV.
Sharp and Loewe expect that thepartnership will allow them tobring products to market morerapidly and generate cost advan-tages in developing the technology.
TELECOMS
LASER SURGERY
Electronics giantstarget EuropeanLCD TV market
DISPLAYS
Lights off: Bookham is to shut its former headquarters at Milton Park in the UK.
Phot
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ookh
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Europe dominates laserdisplay awards for 2004
NEWS
AWARDS
An assortment of stunning lasershows have been honoured in theInternational Laser Display Asso-ciation’s (ILDA) 2004 awards foroutstanding technological andartistic achievement. The annualawards ceremony, which tookplace at the ILDA’s annual confer-ence in Las Vegas, US, is the laserdisplay industry’s equivalent of theHollywood Oscars.
The ILDA awards are split into12 categories including everythingfrom laser displays at outdoor festi-vals and theme parks to corporateproductions and abstract shows.Three new categories made theirdebut this year: laser displays innightclubs and discos; video andfilm productions; and live stage per-formances. In addition, the first“Best in Show” prize, for what thejudges deemed the crème-de-la-crème of all the category winners,was also presented.
A total of 16 companies fromfive countries walked away with
this year’s prizes. The big winner ofthe night was German firm LOBOElectronic, which won three firstprizes after having 10 entries short-listed. Last year, the Aalen-basedfirm received 12 of the 40 prizes on
offer, including four first prizes.The Best in Show accolade,
however, went to US-based LFIInternational for its “Surpraser”entry in the “Best use of lasers in alive stage performance” category.
BUSINESS
Award-winning shows: (top left) Bilabong from LOBO (which won the prize for thebest entertainment graphics show); (bottom left) Surpraser Changes from LFIInternational (best use of lasers in a live stage performance); and (right) Fantasy2004 from Laser Entertainment SRL (best static laser composition).
The German Engineering Federa-tion (VDMA) has formed a newassociation to support the develop-ment of thin, flexible plastic elec-tronics. The Organic ElectronicsAssociation (OEA) was founded on8 December in Frankfurt. It con-sists of 37 companies and research
institutes working in the field.Members include Siemens, Merck,Covion, PolyIC and Konarka, aswell as seven Fraunhofer Institutes.
The OEA aims to bring togetherall the relevant materials makers,equipment manufacturers andresearch institutions in Germany inorder to accelerate the transition tocommercial products and mass-production. The technology may
ultimately find uses in solar energyproduction, sensors and flexible dis-plays, among other applications.
“Germany and Europe are at theforefront of international know-how in organic electronics,” saidWolfgang Mildner, chairman ofthe new association. “This opensup excellent opportunities to startproduction in this future key tech-nology in Europe.”
LFI
Inte
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lLO
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Germany targetsorganic electronics
ASSOCIATIONS
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SRL
SPAC E O P T I C S
Jena-Optronik, a subsidiary ofJenoptik, and EADS SpaceTransportation have won a contractworth multi-million euros. The orderis for 12 laser-based rendezvoussensors which automate theapproach and docking manoeuvresof supply vehicles visiting theInternational Space Station. Thesystems are said to operate up to adistance of 1000 m.
HI G H-P OW E R L A S E R S
Thales Laser has been awarded a$1.8 m (€1.3m) contract for a100 TW-class laser. The laser will beinstalled in the physics departmentat the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, US, in 2005. The companyclaims that the system will be thefirst commercial 100 TW-classsystem operating at 10 Hz in aresearch facility.
AWA R D S
The IST-QuComm collaboration hasbeen awarded part of the EuropeanUnion’s Descartes prize for its workon quantum cryptography. It sharesthe €1 m prize with life scientistsstudying mitochondrial DNA.IST-QuComm is made up ofresearch groups in Sweden,Germany, France, Switzerland,Austria, the UK and the US.
FU N D I N G
SensL of Ireland, a spin-out fromUniversity College Cork’s NationalMicroelectronics Research Centre,has raised €1 m in its first fundinground. The firm’s products includesilicon photon-counting modulesoperating at various wavelengths.
IN BRIEF
Studios split over DVD standards
NEWSBUSINESS
8 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
Big-name Hollywood studios havesplit the next-generation DVD for-mat race down the middle in thepast few months.
In a spate of developmentstowards the end of 2004, Toshiba,an advocate of the rival high-defi-nition DVD (HD-DVD) format,announced that the Paramount,Universal, New Line Cinema andWarner Brothers studios had inde-pendently backed HD-DVD.
“Major Hollywood studios areexpected to release a number ofmovie titles, including new releases,to support the smooth progress ofHD-DVD in its initial year,” saidToshiba’s CEO Tadashi Okamura.
But just days after Toshiba’sannouncement, the Walt DisneyCompany said that it will supportthe Blu-ray format through its
home video distribution arm,Buena Vista Home Entertain-ment. As a result, Disney will jointhe BDA as a board member.“Buena Vista will begin releasingcontent non-exclusively in thatformat when Blu-ray hardwarelaunches in North America andJapan,” said Disney.
It seems that Hollywood studiosnow stand evenly split over the two
formats, both of which use blue(405 nm) GaN laser diodes toincrease disc capacity. But how didthe studios come to their decisions?
Buena Vista president RobertChapek cited the extendability ofthe 25 GB per disc layer Blu-rayformat as one of the key reasonsfor his company’s support of it.
Despite a lower capacity of15 GB per disc layer, Toshiba says
that one of the advantages of theHD-DVD format is its compatibilitywith existing DVD productionmethods. To encourage consumerinterest in HD-DVD equipment,Toshiba and fellow HD-DVD sup-porter Memory-Tech say theyhave developed a read-only discthat can simultaneously storedata in both HD-DVD and stan-dard DVD formats. The single-sided, dual-layer disc stores DVDdata in the upper layer (closer tothe optical head) and HD-DVDdata in the lower layer.
“The new disc makes it possiblefor consumers to view DVD contenton standard DVD players and, afterpurchasing an HD-DVD player, toenjoy high-definition content onthe HD-DVD layer from the samedisc,” said Toshiba.
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Level pegging: Hollywood studios are split over Blu-ray (left) and HD-DVD standards.
New battles in telecoms market
NEWSANALYSIS
OPTICAL NETWORKS
9OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
During the late 1980s, the absenceof commercial lasers that couldoperate at fast data rates (40 Gbit/sand above) meant soaring demandfor bandwidth between cities hadto be satisfied by alternativemeans. The answer came in theform of dense wavelength-divisionmultiplexing (DWDM), whichsqueezes multiple wavelengths oflight, each carrying a modest datarate, down the same fibre.
The beauty of this technique isthat the total transmission capacityof the link scales with the numberof wavelength channels. State-of-the-art (OC-192) DWDM systemscan carry up to 40 channels of10 Gbit/s, each spaced by just100 GHz (0.8 nm). As a result, upto 400 Gbit/s can be carried overhundreds of kilometres.
The recent downturn in telecomsand a glut of backbone capacity hassince suppressed demand forDWDM systems, with serious con-sequences for equipment supplierssuch as Nortel Networks, LucentTechnologies, Alcatel, Fujitsu, Mar-coni and Ciena. However, interest ina new form of multiplexing is grow-ing – coarse wavelength-divisionmultiplexing (CWDM).
Similar in principle to its densecounterpart, the difference is thatCWDM uses fewer, more widely-spaced channels and lower datarates. The current standard is up to16 channels each spaced by 20 nmin the 1310–1610 nm window.All of the required optics is builtinto tiny transceiver modules.
The big attraction of CWDM isthat it is much cheaper and easierto install than DWDM. Conse-quently, it is ideal for bringing sub-stantial increases in capacity totoday’s bandwidth bottlenecks –local-area networks (LANs), stor-
age networks and metropolitannetworks (MANs).
The need to increase capacity isbeing driven by new applicationssuch as business continuity anddisaster recovery, both of whichhave seen widespread growthsince the devastating effects onbusinesses following the Septem-ber 11 attacks on New York’sWorld Trade Center.
Within premise and campusnetworks, organizations can useCWDM to increase the capacity ofthe multimode and singlemodefibre that frequently connectsswitches, servers and storagedevices. Telcos can similarly useCWDM to increase the capacity ofsinglemode fibre in their MANs.
CWDM is often the only viableway to increase such capacitybecause the installed fibre is oftenunable to support higher datarates. For example, much of theinstalled base of fibre cannot sup-port big jumps in channel datarates because of dispersion effects.
Cost-effective upgradeThe cost advantages of CWDM aresignificant. For a start, all of thecritical optics and electronics(sources, drivers, photodetectors,optical add/drop multiplexers anddemultiplexers) are integrated intoa single transceiver module.
In addition, today’s CWDMtransceivers exploit monolithic
arrays of low-cost light-emittingdiodes (LEDs) as sources. Lessexpensive than lasers, LEDs sup-port data rates of up to 622 Mbit/sand are already finding applicationin LANs. A CWDM transceiverwith an array of eight LEDs typi-cally costs less than $25 (€ 19).
For LANs that require higherdata rates (say, 8 ×1 Gbit/s),CWDM modules with integratedvertical-cavity surface-emittinglasers are available for multimodefibre for less than $50 per module.Longer-distance campus networksrequire sources that can deliverlight into singlemode fibre. Forthese applications, modules withFabry-Perot and distributed-feedback lasers are available.
The moderate number of chan-nels in CWDM (usually 4, 8, or 16)means that the pitch or spacingbetween the sources and detectorscan be quite large, typically 1000,500, or 250 µm for a 4-, 8-, or 16-channel system. CWDM’s rela-tively large pitch and smallnumber of channels make manu-facturing easier.
Big benefits also come from thewide spacing (20 nm) of the chan-nels. This means that each sourceor multiplexing filter can operatewithin a reasonable range of itsnominal wavelength. This dramat-ically improves the yield, and thuscost, of components. This broadwavelength tolerance also elimi-
nates the need to use expensivecooled laser sources.
CWDM systems typically servedistances of less than 50 km,which is short enough to avoid theexpense of optical amplifiers whichcompensate for signal attenuationon longer lines. Lastly, integratedmodules eliminate the need forexpensive fibre ribbon, which isnecessary in DWDM systemswhere the larger number of chan-nels cannot undergo integrationinto a single array.
Commercial development The first CWDM products appearedin 2001 from two Californian start-ups: Blaze Network Products andCognet Microsystems. Using fourand eight channels and LED trans-mitters operating at 125 Mbit/s,these first CWDM modules quicklyfound a niche in the Gigabit Ether-net market. CWDM has since foundapplication in other short-haul (lessthan 50 km) applications.
Leading suppliers of CWDMmodules include Finisar Corpora-tion, which recently unveiled a lineof 8-channel transceivers forMANs, DiCon Fiberoptics, Fiber-Dyne Labs, Canoga Perkins, Alli-ance Fiber Optic Products, NortelNetworks, and Australian Fibre-Works. Interestingly, both of theCWDM pioneers – Blaze and Cog-net – have since been acquired.Cognet was taken over by Intel in2001, and Blaze was acquired byAduro at the beginning of 2004.
I expect to see further acquisi-tions as companies jockey forsupremacy in the growing marketfor CWDM technology.
Compact and self-contained: transceivers for CWDM are a cost-effective andconvenient way to upgrade the capacity of an optical fibre network.
Fini
sar
Robert Thomas is principal at SRIConsulting Business Intelligence, abusiness and technology research
consultancy spin-offfrom StanfordResearch Institute.See www.sric-bi.comor e-mail [email protected].
Firms are now fighting todominate the market forCWDM technology,writes Robert Thomas.
Happy New Year
NEWSLEADER
INNOVATION
OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
Welcome to 2005. The sharp-eyed amongyou will notice a few changes to OLE thismonth. As part of our continual efforts tomake the magazine a better read, we areadding some new sections with more of apersonal face.
I am delighted to announce that RobertThomas from the technology analyst firmSRIC-BI is joining OLE as a regularcontributor and his analysis page in the Newssection will now be with us throughout 2005.This month, Robert takes a fresh look at thetelecoms market after its crash and revealshow cost-effective technologies are nowemerging to play an important role (p9). Nextmonth, the fight to dominate the market forblue laser diodes manufactured from galliumnitride comes under his spotlight.
In addition, I will now be writing a briefeditorial in each issue to highlight anyparticularly interesting developments that areworthy of comment. This month, OLE’seditorial team has gone out on a limb with ourpick of the hot emerging technologies for2005 (p28). Our choice of fibre lasers, OLEDdisplays and silicon photonics may becontroversial, but there’s no doubt that thesetechnologies were continually hitting theheadlines in 2004. We’re sure you’ll behearing more about them in the year ahead.
One organization for which 2005 holdsspecial significance is SPIE, which celebratesits 50th anniversary. On p17, EugeneArthurs, the society’s executive director, talksto OLE about the ever-changing world ofoptics and the rising importance of China as aphotonics superpower.
For those of you attending the society’sPhotonics West show in California later thismonth, please don’t forget to turn to the backof the magazine to visit our show guide.There, you’ll find our breakdown of the eventwith previews of each of the four technicalsymposia and a sample of some of the newproducts on display. In addition, our websiteOptics.org will be posting daily news from theSan Jose convention centre, so those of youstill in the lab won’t miss any bigbreakthroughs.
Happy New Year from all the team at OLE.
Oliver Graydon, editorE-mail: [email protected]
“We’vegone out ona limb withour pick ofthe hottechnologyfor 2005.”Oliver Graydon
As New Yorkers and touristspounded the streets in search ofgifts over the holiday season, thespectacular snowflakes hangingthroughout the city would nodoubt have grabbed their attention.
In November 2004, Saks FifthAvenue unveiled its “snowflakespectacle” – a sound and lightshow on the flagship store’s facade.The display featured 50 giantsnowflakes illuminated with atotal of 72 000 LEDs supplied byPhilips Electronics.
The fully programmable, indi-vidually unique snowflakes took5000 h to produce. The 14 largesnowflakes are about 20 ft in diam-eter and weigh around 300 lbeach, while the smaller ones are8 ft in diameter and weigh 100 lb.
The installation required 8000 ft ofsteel and 24 000 linear ft of light-ing, as well as 15 colour-changinguplights, 40 strobe lights and13 000 ft of cable.
The LEDs consume only1 W/linear ft – less than one-thirdof the power consumption of the
standard solution. The installersexpect to have to replace only thoseindividual LEDs damaged duringremoval and re-installation.
The Saks snowflakes were notthe only such use of LEDs in town.The Cartier building on FifthAvenue and 52nd Street was
“wrapped up” by two pieces of redLED “ribbon” that met in a 14 ft-wide bow. And giant LED-basedtiaras, both measuring 5 × 16ft,adorned each of the building’s twopublic entrances.
Cartier’s spectacular festivelighting scheme included severalLED features designed by theLondon-based Metropolis Group ofcompanies which were manufac-tured in its Met3 facility inSwansea, Wales, UK.
The entire display containedmore than 17 000 LEDs, including2340 red Luxeon LEDs fromLumileds in the ribbon, and 1000white Luxeons in each tiara. Theremainder were a mixture of redand white 5 mm LEDs from the UKfirm Plus Opto.
Tim Whitaker is editor of LEDsmagazine.
LEDs light up NewYork Christmas
Optical sensor cleans up car fumes
TECHNOLOGYAPPLICATIONS 11 R&D 13 PATENTS 15
11OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
By James TyrrellA compact optical exhaust sensorcould reduce fuel consumptionand help improve air quality,according to French scientists.Featuring a series of laser-diode-pumped microcavity emitters anda broadband infrared detector, thefast-acting sensor can selectivelymonitor the concentration of gasspecies when an engine is running.
At SPIE’s recent Photonics in theAutomobile event in Geneva, Swit-zerland, Francois Levy of Frenchresearch agency CEA-LETI explain-ed that engine performance can bedramatically improved by control-ling combustion parameters on areal-time basis.
Unfortunately, the chemical-based emission sensors found onvehicles today are unsuitable for thetask because they are too slow andprovide poor selectivity between gasspecies. However, optical sensorscould change all that.
“We have already demonstratedthe ability to detect less than50 ppm methane,” Levy told OLE,
“as well as the possibility of havingsufficient response to make a meas-urement from cylinder to cylinder.”
In partnership with automotivecomponents supplier Delphi, car-maker Renault and Europeantechnology developer EADS, CEA-LETI has come up with a fast-acting, low-cost sensor that usesspectroscopy to monitor hazard-ous engine exhaust emissions.
The work forms part of the
IMPECC (infrared microsystem forpollution emission control on cars)project supported by the EuropeanCommission. It is likely that, from2008, EU legislation will require allnew vehicles to be fitted with a per-manent emission-control system.
The sensor determines gas con-centration by passing infraredlight – from a series of microcavityemitters – through a gas samplingchamber on to a detector. The final
design will feature a microbolo-meter detector that can operate atroom temperature. However, in itsprototype version, the team usesan MCT photoconductor detectorcooled to –60 °C.
Each microcavity emitter con-sists of a heterostructure of cad-mium, mercury and telluriumwhich emits light over the 3–5 µmrange when pumped with a low-power laser diode (830 nm). On itsown, the emission spectrum of thephotoluminescent heterostructureis too broad for use in gas analysis.However, by sandwiching the emit-ting structure between two dielec-tric mirrors, the researchers havecreated an optical resonator thatnarrows the spectral emission.
Currently, the sensor operates atthree detection wavelengths:3.3 µm for hydrocarbons; 4.75 µmfor carbon monoxide; and 3.8µm toprovide a low-absorption referencechannel. The reference channelallows the team to make a differen-tial measurement and correct forartefacts such as detector drift.
Real-time: IMPECC’s fast-acting optical sensor uses low-cost microcavity emittersand an IR detector to measure exhaust gases with cylinder-to-cylinder resolution.
LEDS
SENSORS
Top: a rendering of the Saks Fifth Avenue storefront and one of the 50 snowflakesinstalled on its front façade. Bottom: the Cartier building with its ribbon and tiaras.
Phili
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Holey VCSELs produce high powers
TECHNOLOGYAPPLICATIONS
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
12 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
Etching tiny holes into the top sur-face of a VCSEL is the key to high-power singlemode operation,according to scientists from bothSony in Japan and Alight Tech-nologies, a spin-off from the Tech-nical University of Denmark.
The big stumbling block withtraditional VCSEL designs is thatattempts to ramp the output powerabove 1 mW generally result inmultimode operation. In standardVCSELs, a layer in the top Braggreflector is oxidized to form a nar-row aperture. The device’s outputcan then be increased by makingthis aperture larger.
Unfortunately, getting the aper-ture size right turns into a balanc-ing act. Once the aperture reachesa certain diameter, the outputbecomes multimode.
In order to tackle this issue, Sonyresearchers have etched tiny trian-gular holes into the top surface ofan oxide-confined 850 nm VCSELand generated output powers of upto 7 mW. What’s more, the teambelieves its holey VCSEL structurecan produce 10 mW in variousmaterial systems (Applied Physics
Letters 85 5162).Akio Furukawa and his Sony co-
workers fabricated several patternsof holes using electron beam litho-graphy and reactive ion etching.“The holes are aligned so that theysurround the centre modal areaand the [triangular hole’s] tip pen-etrates the oxide aperture by a fewmicrons,” said the authors.
The first holey VCSEL containeda circular pattern of nine triangularholes with a length of 5µm, a widthof 1.25–3.75 µm and a depth of3 µm respectively. The resultingdevice produced an output power of2 mW at a threshold current of5 mA and a sidemode suppressionratio (SMSR) of 45–50 dB.
The second pattern containedeight holes and the device pro-duced 7 mW at a threshold cur-
rent of 5 mA and an SMSR of40 dB. “These results suggest thatthe emission is not a multimodepattern or a higher-order single-mode, but a somewhat deformedfundamental mode,” said theauthors. “Further analysis isrequired to clarify the nature ofthis singlemode emission.”
While Sony has reported resultsfor 850 nm, Alight has used a sim-ilar approach to increase thepower of both 850 and 1310 nmdevices. The Danish firm etchesshallow holes of less than 100 nmdeep into the top surface of theupper VCSEL mirror.
“We currently have 3–5 mWsinglemode output power andbelieve our technology has thepotential to go beyond that,” saidDirk Jensen of Alight.
Target markets for high-power VCSELsinclude storage-area networks and fibre-to-the-home.
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TECHNOLOGYR&D
SOURCES
13OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
www.pi.ws/olef Physik Instrumente (PI) . GB: 01582-764334 . D: 0721-48460
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Mid-infrared diode lasers with atuning range of 700 nm have beenunveiled by a team of researchersfrom Poland and France. By apply-ing hydrostatic pressures up to19 kbar, the diode lasers tune from2.4 µm down to 1.7 µm (AppliedPhysics Letters 85 4292).
“We are aiming at spectroscopicapplications and at replacing tun-able sources such as Ti:sapphirelasers,” Witold Trzeciakowski fromthe Polish Academy of Sciencestold OLE. “In telecoms, a tunablelaser could be useful for diagnosisof fibre networks. Gas detectionand pollution control also need
tunable diode lasers.”Applying hydrostatic pressure to
a semiconductor device modifies itsbandgap and emission wavelength.Trzeciakowski and colleagues have
used this phenomenon to tune avariety of laser diodes with emis-sion wavelengths starting at635 nm right through to longerwavelengths of 1550 nm.
In this work, the team grewInGaAsSb/AlGaAsSb lasers whichemitted 2.4 µm continuous-waveat room temperature. A single laserwas mounted in a piston-cylindercell and subjected to pressures ofup to 20 kbar. A microlens helpedto couple light out, either througha sapphire window or a fibre.
For each pressure, the teammeasured the current-voltage andpower-current characteristics.
“We had up to 7 mW from 2.4 µmdown to 1.9 µm, and below 1.9 µmwe had 5 mW,” said Trzeci-akowski. “When the pressure wasincreased up to 19 kbar, thethreshold current varied from 240to 400 A/cm2, showing a mini-mum of 200 A/cm2 close to 8 bar.”
The researchers now hope tolimit the degradation of theirdevices after multiple pressurecycles and say that special mount-ing and processing may berequired. “We also want toincrease the reliability of our pres-sure cell by reducing its diameter,”explained Trzeciakowski.
Under pressure: the diode is subjectedto pressures of up to 20 kbar.
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Holography with extreme ultra-violet light could be the answer forrapid, mass production of high-performance lenses for the X-rayregion, according to Swiss scientists(Applied Physics Letters 85 2700).
Emerging techniques such as X-ray microscopy and advancedlithography are placing continualdemands on the imaging resolu-tion of X-ray optics. To date, thebest lenses are electron-beam writ-ten Fresnel Zone Plates (FZPs),which offer an imaging resolution
in the order of 20 nm. However,researchers would like to improvethis so that they can perform betterimaging of magnetic domains andcell structures, for example.
FZP lenses consist of a series ofconcentric “phase-shifting” rings,known as zones, that are formed ona transparent substrate. The imag-ing resolution of an FZP is relatedto the width of the smallest zone.
“The resolution is limited by thedifficulty of making the diffractionoptics with a high degree of perfec-tion,” Harun Solak, a researcher atthe Paul Scherrer Institute inSwitzerland, explained to OLE.“The novel holographic method
that we have reported shouldanswer the main challenges in theproduction of such lenses.”
Solak and his colleagues havenow made high-performance FZPsusing holography at 13 nm for thefirst time. As X-ray microscopygrows in popularity, their technique
could be ideal for mass productionas it requires a fabrication time ofseconds rather than the hoursrequired by electron-beam writing.
The Swiss team transmits13 nm light through a mask con-taining two FZPs and generates aninterference pattern on a layer ofphotoresist. The result is a new“daughter” FZP with double theimaging resolution of its parents.
The team has used the method tocreate a daughter FZP with a widthof just 60nm. “This development isimportant,” said Solak, “as it pro-vides a way to make lenses with thepotential to push the resolution inX-ray microscopy to below 10nm.”
EUV holographymakes X-ray lenses
X-RAY OPTICS
EUV: PSI’s interferometer chamberwhich is used to create X-ray optics.
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TECHNOLOGYR&D
TERAHERTZ TECHNOLOGY
14 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
Making terahertz waveguidescould be much simpler than scien-tists have thought, thanks to a dis-covery at Rice University in the US.Researchers have demonstratedthat a bare metal wire can guideterahertz pulses with virtually nodispersion and low attenuation(Nature 432 376).
Bridging the gap betweenmicrowave and optical regions inthe electromagnetic spectrum,terahertz radiation can penetrateplastics, clothing, cardboard andsemiconductors. Less hazardousthan X-rays, it offers an attractiveway to screen for concealed itemsat airports or mail depots.
However, finding a waveguidethat operates in this spectral regionhas proved difficult. Scientists haveturned to dielectric fibres, metaltubes, plastic ribbons and even pho-tonic crystal fibres in an attempt toovercome the high attenuation anddispersion that plagues terahertz-wave transmission.
“We stumbled on the idea quiteby accident,” Daniel Mittleman ofRice University’s electrical andcomputer engineering departmenttold OLE. “We were using aper-tureless near-field microscopy toimprove the spatial resolution interahertz imaging.” The techniqueplaces a small metal tip in closeproximity to a sample surface toinduce enhanced scattering.
The breakthrough came whenMittleman’s student, KanglinWang, moved the illumination spotalong the shaft of the near-field tip.“[We observed] the same scattered
terahertz signal, only shifted intime according to the propagationdelay along the metal tip,” said Mit-tleman. “This was firm evidencethat there was a propagatingguided mode along the tip.”
According to Mittleman, mostprevious work on terahertz wave-guides has evolved from earlierdesigns for guiding at microwavefrequencies or in the infrared. “Theidea of a bare wire is not one thathas been tried at other frequen-cies,” he commented. “So it is notsomething that one would natu-rally have thought to try.”
The team has demonstrated thesuccess of its bare-metal wave-guide by constructing a terahertzendoscope and analysing the inte-
rior of a glass flask and metal tube.Motivated by their initial results,
the researchers are now busy opti-mizing their scheme for couplingterahertz waves into their metalwaveguide.
“We are [currently] using a scat-tering process, which is very ineffi-cient,” said Mittleman. “Thismeans that the amplitude of theradiation propagating along thewire is very small to begin with,which limits what we can do.”
Once perfected, Mittlemanbelieves that the terahertz wires willbe compatible with the commercialterahertz imaging systems availablefrom firms such as Picometrix andTeraView, and could lead to licens-ing opportunities.
VCSEL S
Researchers in Sweden havefabricated long-wavelength VCSELsemitting 1 mW of singlemodepower. The 1265 nm device is saidto maintain a stable output powerof between 10 and 140°C. Theteam from the Royal Institute ofTechnology and ZarlinkSemiconductor believe the VCSELwill find applications such as10 GBit Ethernet where singlemodeemission is required. The sourcecomprises an InGaAs VCSEL whichhas a thin, patterned silicon layeron the top distributed Braggreflector. The silicon layer acts as amode filter by promoting thefundamental mode andsuppressing higher-order modes(Applied Physics Letters 85 4851).
SP E C T RO S C O P Y
Single-cell, label-free detection ofbiological agents is possible usingan optical-fibre cavity ring-downspectroscopy resonator, accordingto a team from PrincetonUniversity’s Department ofChemistry, US. The set-up uses afibre with a tapered section,produced by heating andmechanically drawing the fibre.According to the authors, thistransforms the core mode into acladding-dominated modecontaining an evanescent portionthat interacts with the externalenvironment. The taper is coatedwith a specific polypeptide whichbinds to one type of target cell.Excited by laser light at 1520 nm,the optical sensor traps the targetcells in the localized evanescentfield (Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 4523).
JOURNAL WATCH
Terahertz endoscopy: this image shows the terahertz endoscope probing a glassflask. The transmitter and free-space optics directing the beam towards thewaveguide can be seen in the lower right region of the image. A straight wire carriesthe guided wave into the flask and a curved wire directs the reflected wave out ofthe flask towards the detector, which is also visible in this photograph.
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TECHNOLOGYR&D/PATENTS
15OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
AWARDSOptoLum wins second patent forthermal management of LEDsUS-based OptoLum has been awarded US patentnumber 6 815 724 covering the thermalmanagement of LEDs in solid-state lightingsystems. According to the firm, the patent coversthe use of sensors and controllers that activelyand intelligently manage the temperature andcurrent of the LEDs.
“OptoLum’s work is of the utmost importance tothe future of solid-state lighting, whether forarchitectural, automotive, aviation, marine ormedical purposes,” said the firm’s president JoelDry. “All of these applications will benefit from ourthermal management solutions, which providemaximum efficiency and longevity.” OptoLum nowholds two US patents and has five US applicationsrelated to thermal management pending.
Semrock awarded first patent tocover its fluorescence filtersSemrock has been granted US patent number6 809 859, which covers its BrightLine series offluorescence filters. This is the first patent the firmhas received in this area.
The patent covers the filter’s one-piececonstruction and high-layer count, both propertiesthat Semrock claims add to the performance ofthe filter. “Semrock has developed a technologythat offers unprecedented levels of performanceand proven reliability in fluorescence applicationsfor the biotech and analytical instrumentationmarkets,” said Victor Mizrahi, the company’s CEO.
SETTLEMENTSFemtosecond specialists settleintellectual property disputeFemtosecond laser-makers IMRA America andFianium have reached an agreement over apotential intellectual property (IP) conflict. Thedeal sees Fianium withdrawing its 800 nm seederproduct – the FP800 – from the market.
IMRA America says it will continue to market allof its seeder and oscillator products, including itsnewly introduced Femtolite Ultraline. “We haveinvested significantly in both our research andbusiness activities in the femtosecond market andwe will defend our IP position vigorously,” saidTakashi Omitsu, president of IMRA America. “Wehave always believed in the potential offemtosecond technology.”
APPLICATIONSRaytheon attempts to patentcompact eye-safe laser designRaytheon has applied to patent an eye-safe laserin application number WO 2004/100330. In thefirst stage of the two-stage design, either aneodymium or ytterbium-ion doped crystal ispumped with the output from an infrared diodearray bar. This emission is then used to intracavity-pump an erbium-ion-doped crystal which emits inthe eye-safe region of 1.4–1.8 µm. According tothe inventors, the laser is inherently compact andlow-cost and its output power can be scaled bychanging the number of diode pump-sources.
Photonic crystal cavity offerssensitive spectroscopy solutionThe authors of patent application WO2004/100327 discuss the detection of chemicalsusing photonic crystal lasers. In their set-up, thesample is placed directly into the photonic crystalcavity and specifically within the lasing mode. Theinventors from the California Institute ofTechnology say this allows them to perform high-resolution spectroscopy with single-moleculesensitivity on femtolitre volumes of analyte.
PATENTS
To search for recently published applications, visit http://pctgazette.wipo.int and http://ep.espacenet.com
Scientists at the National PhysicalLaboratory (NPL), UK, have suc-ceeded in making the most accu-rate optical frequency measure-ment to date (Science 306 1355).
The development is an impor-tant step towards constructingoptical clocks that are hundreds oftimes more precise than theworld’s best timekeeper – the cae-sium (Cs) atomic clock which oper-ates at a microwave frequency.
The NPL measurement wasmade on the red 5 s 2S1/2 to 2D5/2
transition (674 nm) of a singlecooled-strontium (Sr88+) ion. Thefrequency of the transition wasmeasured to an accuracy of 3.4parts in 1015.
“This is a factor of three moreaccurate than the best previouslyreported optical frequency meas-urements: the mercury ion opti-cal frequency standard at the
NIST, and the ytterbium ion opti-cal frequency standard at PTB,”Helen Margolis from NPL toldOLE. “With improvements to ourset-up we should be able todemonstrate that our strontium-ion optical-frequency standard isboth more stable and reproduciblethan Cs clocks.”
Although the NPL results arenot yet as good as Cs atomic clocks(which boast a superior stability ofjust one part in 1015 at a frequencyof 9.192 GHz), it is thought thatoptical frequency standards havethe potential to far outperform Cs-based microwave standards. Ulti-mately, an optimized optical clockcould result in a new, more accu-rate way to define the second.
“It has long been speculated thatoptical frequencies, which areabout 100 000 times higher thanthe Cs microwave frequency,
would provide a better method ofdefining the second because theydivide time into smaller slices,”explained Margolis. “A number ofresearch groups have suggestedthat, ultimately, optical frequencystandards could prove to be betterthan Cs clocks by a factor ofbetween 100 and 1000.”
To perform the experiment, Mar-
golis and her colleagues had to cap-ture a single Sr88+ ion in a trap andcool it down to just a few milli-degrees above absolute zero(–273 °C). It was then probed witha laser beam from an extended-cavity red diode laser that wastuned to search for the transition.An optical frequency comb gener-ated by a femtosecond laser wasused to calibrate the diode laser’sexact emission frequency when itmatched the transition.
The NPL team is now refiningthe set-up and hopes to improve itsaccuracy. “Probably the mostimportant improvement is reduc-ing the linewidth of the laser weuse to probe the 674 nm clocktransition,” said Margolis. “We arealso building a second strontiumion trap to assess the reproducibil-ity by direct comparisons betweenthe two standards.”
Optical clock makes precision leapSTANDARDS
Resetting the standard: NPL professorPatrick Gill with the ion trap system.
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13.0 µm
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SPIE sees its 50th anniversary this year. Oliver Graydon spoke to Eugene Arthurs, thesociety’s executive director, about the year ahead and international trends in optics.
SPIE hits the golden fiftyINTERVIEW
17OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
OG: Which optical technologies andmarkets do you think are going tocreate a big stir in 2005?EA: The thing that’s getting lots of attentionhere in the US right now is the flat-screen tele-vision. All of a sudden it’s caught fire as theconsumer purchase of the moment. Many ofthem are plasma-based but there are alsorear-projection versions, which is good newsfor firms making optics and light sources. Weare also seeing larger and larger LCDs, butunlike the RPTVs which help support sup-pliers of optical parts, this market is domi-nated by a handful of well-known firms, noneof which are US-based. It will be interesting tosee if LCDs can make the leap and becomecost effective in large sizes of 50 inches or so.
Another area that’s exciting at themoment is next-generation DVD, wherethere are two competing new formats: HD-DVD and Blu-ray. They are both going tohave significant commercial impact on theoptics sector, in terms of the parts in thedrives and the disk-mastering equipment.
Asian manufacturers are very strongin both of the applications youmentioned (displays and opticalstorage). What is the future forEuropean and US firms in thephotonics sector? Yes, a huge percentage of these products aremade in Asia. That is one of the big concernsfor the optics community in the US and West-ern Europe. The question is: where are thefuture jobs going to be if everything is madein Asia and we are at the consumer end ofthe business, which requires no training inoptics and photonics?
Both Europe and the US have to think care-fully about how they can regain a larger shareof the manufacturing and retain the seg-ments that they have. I see manufacturing asan important part of a vibrant economy.There is a big trend in the US to follow the UKand become more of a service-based econ-omy and that makes me very nervous. We’vegot to look at how manufacturing can bedone cost-effectively in Europe and the US.
I remember way back in my youth thatthere was this perception that all that Japancould do was make cheap-and-nasty replicasof our wonderful ideas, and look how thatperception has changed. To some extent, thatis the status of China today – its strength is
low-cost manufacturing and anything thatis heavily dependent on cost and manpoweris moving out there. The sentiment seems tobe that we don’t care as we are going to keepahead by inventing. I think that is a veryshort-sighted view of things. Ultimately, asthe standard of living in China rises, it willbecome less cost-competitive. The questionis, in the meantime, will Europe and the USbecome a scientifically illiterate wasteland,or will they hang on somehow?
What are some potential solutions? We’re all looking for the answer to this. Ithink that technical education is going to bevery important in that regard. If you look atthe success of Ireland, for example, a lot isdue to having a very strong educationalinfrastructure, with a significant fraction ofyoung people actually going into science andtechnology. An educated workforce is anincreasingly important aspect of manufac-turing. As technology changes, the adapt-ability of a workforce is an important aspectof the future. How many people coming out
of universities in Europe and the US see theirfuture in manufacturing? It’s seen as beingunexciting. But if you were to jump over to asimilar set of universities in Asia – and thereare some really top-notch universities – thereare many people with a technical educationwho do see their future in manufacturing.
“Both Europe andthe US have tothink carefullyabout how theycan regain a largershare of themanufacturing.”Eugene Arthurs
Building bridges in Asia: SPIE Korean Chapter president Jongmin Lee (left), SPIE executive directorEugene Arthurs (middle), and Osuk Kwon (right), SPIE Awards Committee chair, outside the newheadquarters of the Korean Photonics Technology Institute in Gwangju.
▲▲
What other trends concern you? A recent trend which should be very worry-ing for the US is the big decline in the num-ber of Chinese students coming to the US tostudy. Essentially, the US has pulled in thewelcome mat. There is now a perception,which is somewhat misplaced, that it is hardto get into the US, and this is a concern onseveral fronts. One is the loss of talent in USuniversities and, beyond that, there is a sig-nificant impact on the diplomatic front interms of international business relations.
The internationalization of science – a veryprecious thing – is under threat, and SPIE isworking very hard to sustain it. SPIE hasbeen active in the US for 50 years, Europe forperhaps 30–40 years and China for about15 years.
Are you seeing changes in thegeography of your membership?We are seeing a disproportionate shift toother regions of the world, but don’t neces-sarily see the membership going down – we
are very international. As we speak, SPIE’smembership is at a record high of 16 555, ofwhich 65% is in North America. About 20%is in Europe and we are getting a growingmembership in Asia [currently 12%]. Thatsaid, people in the US are less inclined to jointhings than they were in the past, and in Asiathere is no tradition of joining professionalsocieties. The principle thing about SPIE isthat we are always learning and adapting toreflect technical trends and peoples’ needs.We are starting to work more with local soci-eties in Korea, Japan and Singapore and tosupport their activities by adding an interna-tional component. In China, where there isno well-established optical organization, weare playing a more dominant role.
Tell me about your events in Asia.Our largest events in Asia have been in China– such as the Asia Pacific Conference on Opti-cal Communication which is held annuallyand which we are now hoping to movearound Asia. In 2004, it had 1 100 submis-sions, of which 650 were accepted and pre-sented. The other major event in the regionthat we organize is Photonics Asia, which hasbeen held in both Beijing and Shanghai. It hasgrown to 2300 submissions, of which1500–1600 papers were presented. That isconsiderably larger than CLEO Europe, forinstance, and is approaching the scale of Pho-tonics West. We have won a lot of local respectby trying to make international connectionsfor the local scientific community. We put on alot of meetings in Europe and, increasingly,Asia, to serve the growing membership there.It’s important because it connects themembership throughout the world to thereality of what is going on in these regions.
SPIE enjoys it 50th anniversary in2005. How do you plan to celebrate?There will be a special emphasis on our 50thanniversary at all major events throughoutthe year, that will culminate with our annualmeeting. It’s amazing to remember thatwhen SPIE was founded, the laser did notexist. But we are not just celebrating the past,we are also looking to the next 50 years. ■■
INTERVIEW
18 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
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“It’s amazing toremember thatwhen SPIE wasfounded, the laserdidn’t exist.”Eugene Arthurs
The science ofmaking money
START-UPS
19OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
When I was first asked to write this articleadvising budding entrepreneurs on the pit-falls of commercializing their technology, Iwill admit to a sharp intake of breath. It istrue that I have been involved with numer-ous firms that have taken a scientific idea andturned it into a successful, money-makingproduct. But it is equally true that my careerhas also included a few “learning experi-ences”. Here are some thoughts.
My first piece of advice is to make sure thatyou understand the whole life-cycle of bring-ing a product to market and never lose sightof the ultimate objective: generating revenueand profits. In the strange world of the late-1990s telecoms boom, large valuations werecreated for start-ups with just a good storyand a slick presentation. Those days are longover. Sanity has now returned to the finan-cial community and, today, valuations arefirmly based on a company’s ability to per-form and deliver “the numbers”.
All too often I hear academics and R&D sci-entists in firms say they really understand atechnology and its potential. In my experi-ence, they are actually talking about havingan in-depth knowledge of the scientificissues. Before embarking on any commer-cialization of a technology, it is important toperform a serious appraisal of what is neededto create a viable product. This is vital if theproject is to get off to a good start.
Management teams spend most of theirtime “minding the gaps” between each stageof a firm’s commercialization cycle (figure 1,p21) – for example, making the transitionfrom a prototype to a successful manufac-turing ramp, or matching a product’s fea-tures and cost to customer expectations.
It is important to have realistic plans to
bridge all of these gaps at the outset, particu-larly when writing a business plan. It is thetime spent considering solutions to thesehurdles that really pays off later.
The business planIn presenting a business plan, styles vary, buthere are some essential points to cover: ● The market: How big is it and how is it seg-mented? Nothing frustrates intelligentinvestors more than statements like: “Accord-ing to market analysts, the global market forwidgets is set to grow to such-and-such...” Sowhat? You must be able to demonstrate howthe market is segmented and where you arepositioned in it. The total available marketshould be broken down and the sector whereyour product sits scrutinized. Ideally, yourtarget product area – often referred to as theserviced available market – should be largeand easy to enter. It is your ability to penetratethe market, along with a realistic view of thespeed of execution, that will allow the rev-enue plan to stay on track. ● The product: What is it and how is it posi-
tioned? There are two primary considera-tions here. Firstly, ensure that you have asolid product definition at the outset. Thismay well change as you engage with themarket, but being able to clearly articulatewhat your product does, what advantages itoffers or what problems it solves for cus-tomers is key. The second issue is to define atwhat point in the supply chain the new ven-ture operates. One way to do this is to identifythe core competencies of your enterprise,and then think about how to maximize theirbusiness impact. However, few small-to-medium-sized enterprises thrive by trying todo everything themselves, so don’t over-estimate your capabilities. ● Skills: Focus on the gaps in the commer-cialization cycle (figure 1) and ensure thatyou have (or can bring in) the skills within theorganization to bridge them. This shouldresult in a balanced team with complemen-tary experience in the fields of science, man-agement and business execution. Also beaware that as the business evolves, so will theleadership emphasis. It may be appropriate
Thinking of starting up yourown business? DavidParker, CEO of fibre-laserspecialist SouthamptonPhotonics, offers somevaluable advice.
▲▲
More than science: to create a winning company, you need to write a convincing business plan, raisefunds and build a solid team with expertise in the appropriate areas.
SPI
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OLE • January 2005 • optics.org20
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START-UPS
21OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
for the founding team, and specifically itsleader, to pass on the baton. Handled well andin a timely manner, this should be viewed as asuccess in itself. The inability of foundingteams to initiate handover themselves is acommon major failing. Accepting this pointand openly scenario-planning for it will gaincredibility for the company in the eyes of theinvestment community.● Going to market: Think carefully aboutyour channel into the market and consider allthe options, such as direct selling or formingOEM or distribution partnerships. The opti-mum model may change with time as theenterprise becomes more credible, so bewareof getting locked in to any partnerships tooearly. This will destroy value. Finally, analysethe customers’ buying cycle. They have theirown dynamics and rarely buy just becauseyou have a product ready to sell.● Resources and the financial plan: If theitems above are well-addressed, the resourceplan should be the easiest bit. Ensure that therevenue plan is achievable and is not over-optimistic. You should build in enough timefor development and the inevitable pothole ortwo. Think about the amount of money youare raising and its timing, as funding alwayscomes in distinct rounds. Too much too earlyis dilutive, but too little can hinder real
progress and potentially kill a company beforeit has had a chance to get off the ground.
Having done all this and prepared a thor-ough business plan, you are ready to startseeking capital, which brings me to my nextpoint...
Raising moneyHere is some advice about dealing with thefinancial community and raising funds:● Contacts: Work with high-calibre individ-uals and firms. Yes, you want their moneybut, perhaps more importantly, you also
technology productdevelopment
manufacturing
channeldelivery
customer
science
SPI
Fig. 1: The cycle of commercialization, showing the stages involved in taking a scientific idea and turningit into a money-making product. To be successful, it is important to ‘mind the gaps’ to enable a smoothtransition between the different stages.
want them on your team. Their experience,credibility and network of contacts should bean asset. Think about the consortium andtheir geography. It is also an advantage thatSeries A investors will have a long-term viewand the financial resources to followthrough. Premature exits or fundraisingsbased on investors’ agendas rather than thecompany’s rarely maximizes value. ● Find a coach within a few firms: Take theirviews into account early in the fundraisingprocess. In addition, make sure you havesomeone on your team who can open a fewdoors. Cold-calling is a very inefficientprocess. The other role of this team memberis to guide you through the “deal” – remem-ber the investors want to make money too.● Have a prototype: Make sure you candemonstrate the technology and have doneenough customer research to show there isreal demand for your products. This is key toachieving financial backing.
Intellectual propertyHow the company’s intellectual assets are tobe managed and protected will be a topic ofongoing discussion. One thing is for sure, IPgeneration is not for intellectual credibility, itis a business tool. Put simply, it should bemanaged as a business process like any other.
Getting the balance right between proac-tive and defensive use of IP is crucial if scantresources are not to be squandered. The bal-ance between IP covering the “how it works?”(fundamental technology) and “what is itfor?” (application-specific) is also important.
Southampton Photonics (SPI), a companyI am involved with, illustrates many of thepoints discussed in this article. Formed as oneof the many start-ups developing opticalcomponents for the booming telecoms sectorin the 1990s, it suffered badly in the severedownturn that followed. However, in the pasttwo years, the firm has been transformed.
SPI’s skill base has been broadened and aruthless assessment of its real core compe-tencies carried out. Since then, we have con-centrated on enhancing the company’sstrengths in optical-fibre technology, andimproved the power and performance of ourfibre lasers. This, in turn, enabled a newproduct strategy outside of telecoms toemerge as a provider of fibre lasers for appli-cations in industrial materials processing,aerospace and healthcare.
SPI has achieved this high level of diversityby concentrating on its competencies, com-bined with good positioning in the supplychain and the ability to produce standardizedbuilding blocks. The company is a goodexample of how focusing on the basics canallow a dramatic mid-course correction inan extremely difficult market environment.
There is no magic recipe that brings suc-cess. The reality is that you need to marrystrong vision, a real focus on the basics, anda load of hard work from everyone in theteam with just a smattering of that fickleingredient: good luck. ■■
David Parker is CEO and president of SouthamptonPhotonics Inc (SPI), a developer of high-powerfibre lasers based in Southampton, UK. For moreinformation visit www.spioptics.com.
START-UPS
22 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
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Driving in the dark could become a lot safer if affordable night-vision systems being developed by several European projects prove popular. James Tyrrell gets the
industry view at SPIE’s Photonics in the Automobile event in Geneva.
Car industry drives downthe cost of night vision
AUTOMOTIVE SENSING
23OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
The application of night-vision systems invehicles is set to step up a gear. According toresearch presented at SPIE’s recent Photon-ics in the Automobile event in Switzerland,scientists and engineers are driving towardslow-cost, mass-production solutions thatcould match consumer expectations withindustry price-points.
A collaboration between the EuropeanPhotonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) andSPIE Europe, the meeting brought togetherkey industry players from firms includingAudi, Lumileds, Centro Ricerche Fiat, HellaKG Hueck, DaimlerChrysler and Osram. Thethree-day workshop saw more than 90 dele-gates assemble in Geneva.
Discussions covered a number of photon-ics innovations for cars, such as intelligentlighting systems that respond to fog and tun-nels, lane-departure warning devices andassisted cruise-control. However, along withLED-based headlamps, it was night visionsystems in particular that were grabbing alot of attention at the event. The interest innight vision among car makers is partly aresponse to the European Commission’s callto cut the number of road-traffic fatalities;around half of all fatal traffic accidents inEurope and the US occur at night, eventhough road traffic is only around 20% ofthe daytime figure.
Presenting at the event, Jörg Moisel fromDaimlerChrysler Research and Technologypointed out that only high beams provideenough light to illuminate the road suffi-ciently for safe driving at speed. However,drivers often have limited opportunities touse a high beam during their journey: forexample, a low beam must be used in anurban setting or when sharing the roadwith other vehicles. To improve safety, theautomotive industry is looking into otherways of providing the driver with a clearpicture of the road ahead, such as radar ornight-vision tools.
Night-vision systems are based on infrared(IR) technology and can be classified aseither passive or active. Passive systems rely
on a far-infrared (FIR) detector to sense ther-mal radiation from the scene in front of thecar. By contrast, active systems operate in thenear infrared (NIR) and use an infraredsource to illuminate the road ahead.
Passive systemsAs Moisel explains, one advantage of passivesystems is their ability to differentiate warmobjects, such as pedestrians and animals,from a cold background. For this reason,passive systems are particularly effectiveduring the dark winter months. Addition-ally, passive systems are capable of penetrat-ing haze, fog and smoke, betraying theirorigins as a battlefield technology.
Military research has driven the develop-ment of infrared sensors that can detect ther-mal radiation in the 8–14 µm range. Andover the past few years, commercial IR cam-era systems have slowly begun to appear insome luxury cars. For example, US car-maker Cadillac offered a night-vision optiondeveloped by US defence supplier Raytheonwith its 2000 model DeVille sedan.
However, customer reaction to the unitshas been mixed. In fact, Cadillac announcedrecently that it has decided to drop the optionon its 2005 model. “If we bring [out] a night-vision system again, it would be an active sys-tem,” Jay Spenchian, Cadillac’s marketingdirector, told US car magazine AutoWeek. “Butthere are no plans for that at this point.”
In contrast, Honda says that it plans tooffer a passive system to its Japanese cus-tomers this year. Clearly, the automotiveindustry is still settling on the best way todeliver a night-vision package to its cus-tomers. Key to the technology’s success is theneed to balance customer expectations withprice. Fortunately, low-cost, high-volumesolutions may be on the horizon, thanks toseveral major European projects.
The ICAR (infrared camera for car) projectis a three-year European initiative, nownearing completion, that aims to develop alow-cost automotive FIR camera for driver-vision applications. Sensing experts from
Low-cost option: Europe’s ICAR project combinesmicrobolometer technology (top) with easy-to-manufacture moulded optics (centre) to makeautomotive night vision affordable. Below: visible(top) and infrared (bottom) images of the roadahead produced by the ICAR prototype.
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CEA-LETI in France and ULIS (formed in June2002 by Sofradir and CEA) developed thedetector, while the electronic circuit boardswere built by French IR systems specialistCEDIP. German optoelectronic developer ZeissOptronik assembled the cameras and per-formed the necessary electro-optical testing.
With an estimated budget of € 5.7 m, oneof ICAR’s key targets was to create an FIRmicrobolometer detector. These uncooledfocal-plane arrays, which in the case of theICAR project contain 160 ×120 pixels at apitch of 35 µm, could be an affordable solu-tion for high-volume applications such asuse in vehicles.
The low-cost strategy also benefits frommoulded infrared glass lenses supplied byproject partner Umicore. The internationalmaterials specialist has developed a processusing its GASIR material – a chalcogenideglass – that allows direct moulding into thefinal lens shape. According to the team, lensperformance is comparable to that of opticsmade using germanium aspherics, whichare more expensive to manufacture as theyrequire cutting, shaping and polishing.
Sample batches of the GASIR lenses arebeing made at Umicore’s plant in Quapaw,US, and full production start-up is scheduledfor June 2005. According to Umicore’s Mar-leen Van den Bergh, the facility is dedicatedto the production of GASIR assemblies for along-term contract with Autoliv, a majorautomotive component supplier.
A defining requirement for ICAR is thatthe set-up must be able to detect a pedestrianat a distance of at least 190 m, and othervehicles at 500 m. In terms of field-of-view,the system must cover the width of the roadplus any pavement on either side.
As OLE went to press, ICAR’s prototypewas being test-driven at Centro Ricerche Fiatnear Turin, Italy, with input from globalautomotive equipment supplier and projectpartner Valeo. “The [prototype] unit is fitted
in Fiat’s Multipla vehicle,” Arnaud Crastes ofFrench infrared-detector manufacturerULIS told OLE. “Because the car’s instru-ments are in the middle of the cockpit, thereis space for us to mount the display behindthe steering wheel.”
Along with cost, functionality remains anissue for car night vision. This is especiallytrue in the case of passive FIR systems, whichoften output a “negative image” – hot objectsappear white against a cold black back-ground – the unfamiliarity of which reduces
the driver’s reaction time.French firm Sagem, another attendee at
the SPIE event, is tackling this issue by devel-oping an advanced driver-assistance systemthat interprets IR images and provides awarning of potential obstacles. Its workformed part of PAROTO (radar and optoelec-tronic anticollision project for the car), whichconcluded in 2004 and investigated obstacledetection using IR and radar information.
Jacques Lonnoy of Sagem reports that hotobjects in an FIR image such as wheels,
AUTOMOTIVE SENSING
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25OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
Keeping watch: Sagem is developing obstacle-tracking software that works with infrared data.
▲▲
exhaust pipes, pedestrians and cyclists pro-vide effective cues for the detection software.Using software algorithms, the idea is totrack obstacles detected in the camera imageand alert the driver if he or she appears to beunaware of the oncoming danger.
Active systemsThe alternative to FIR systems is the activenight-vision set-up. Active systems employstandard silicon cameras (CCD or CMOS) toimage a scene illuminated with an NIR radia-
tion source in the range 780–1000nm. EDEL(enhanced driver’s perception in poor visibil-ity) is a European project investigating activetechnology that is due to deliver its resultsnext month. The project involves industryheavyweights Osram, Jaguar, Bosch, Hellaand Centro Ricerche Fiat, as well as the Uni-versity of Genoa, the University of Karlsruheand the University of Siena.
As partner firm Bosch points out, becauseroad boundaries and lane markings are vis-ible in the NIR image, it is easy for the user to
differentiate between those obstacles thatare in their driving lane and those that arenot. It also means that the system could beused for other vision-based safety functionssuch as lane-departure warning. By con-trast, FIR images from passive systems canmask lane information, as signs and mark-ings generally adopt the temperature oftheir surroundings.
Active systems have already made theircommercial debut. Toyota released an activesystem back in 2002 based on a halogen IRbulb. Ideas such as a modified headlamp thatcombines an IR high beam with a visible lowbeam, sound like a perfect solution. Unfortu-nately, because the 970 nm emission-peak ofa halogen lamp is located at the edge of a sili-con camera chip’s spectral range, most of theIR radiation emitted remains undetected.
A custom-designed solid-state IR source,such as a semiconductor laser or LED, couldturn out to be a much more effective IR illu-minator – an idea shared by both the EDELproject and DaimlerChrysler. The car-makerhas developed a prototype based on a high-power 808 nm laser diode and a CCD camerawith an interference filter centred at 808 nmwith a 20 nm FWHM bandwidth.
To help manage the heat load, a thermo-electric cooler is attached to the laser’s coppersubassembly. Temperature remains a concernwith solid-state lighting, because operatingenclosures can reach up to 100 °C. However,one benefit of using a laser is that the IRsource could perform other roles, such asforming part of a LIDAR scheme forrangefinding and environmental sensing.
Rather than continuous illumination, theindustry may eventually decide upon pulsedemission. Pulses of IR radiation delivered insynchronization with the unit’s cameracould help to suppress noise from stray light-sources such as streetlamps. Additionally,pulsed schemes could help prevent the cam-era from being “blinded” by 808 nm beamsfrom oncoming vehicles.
Ultimately, LED illumination could proveto be the most cost-effective technique.Moisel’s team at DaimlerChrysler has proto-typed a 5 ×15 array of 0.3 mm LED chipsglued directly to a copper heat-sink. Accord-ing to market data presented by Moisel, thecost (excluding optics) of 1 W of laser poweris around € 25, compared with just € 5 for IRLEDs. However, as he explains, a key para-meter is the size of the IR illuminator’s exitpupil, which is often determined by the veh-icle’s design and styling. Essentially, thesmaller the headlight, the more likely it isthat a laser system will have to be used. Moi-sel concludes that if size was not an issue,infrared LEDs could bring about a low-costsolution to night-vision illumination. ■■
AUTOMOTIVE SENSING
OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
To celebrate the start of 2005, here’s our pick of three innovativetechnologies set to light up the year ahead. In each case, wedescribe their recent achievements and potential future impact.
HOT TECHNOLOGIE
28 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
THE DREAMAn active-matrix full-colour display,made from organic light-emittingmaterials, that challenges thedominance of LCDs.CURRENT STATUSPassive-matrix OLED displays arenow starting to find their firstapplications in clam-shell stylemobile phones, car dashboardsand music players, but thetechnology could potentially domuch more. “The first products arenot very exciting in many waysbecause they do not exploit theflexibility of the technology,”Hermann Schenk of materialsspecialist Covion told OLE. “Whatwe are now seeing is that theactive-matrix technology – a moreadvanced technology that usesthin-film transistor backplanes – isbeginning to enter the market.”
One of the most importanthighlights of 2004 was Sony’s
announcement in September thatit was starting volume manufactureof active-matrix OLED displays foruse in its hand-held PDA (CLIEPEG-VZ90; see OLE November2004, p5). “The real message sentby Sony to the market is that themanufacturing and design issuesof active-matrix technology forOLED can be overcome,” saidSchenk. “The near-term future isreally in applications where youwant to display video informationat close distances of up to 1 mfrom the user’s eyes.”
However, in the long term, OLEDtechnology may not be confined tothe world of personal electronics.The latest demonstrations are nowable to offer the image quality of acathode-ray-tube display in a flat-screen format. Seiko Epson ofJapan unveiled the world’s first40 inch colour OLED TV at the2004 Society for Information
Display symposium in Seattle, US. FUTURE CHALLENGESDespite a series of technologybreakthroughs, factors such asoperational lifetime and cost ofmanufacture remain a concern.“The basic inventions have beenmade and it is now aboutimproving the silicon processing sothat OLEDs are stable enough todeliver consistent quality,”commented Schenk. “Materialsneed to improve to get real marketpenetration in terms of lifetime.”TIMELINEThroughout the next couple ofyears, it is likely that the mainapplications for OLED technologywill continue to be in the personalelectronics market. “Bigcompanies like Samsung SDI arescaling up to be ready to supply tothe market at around the turn ofthe year 2005/2006,” saidSchenk.
OLED displays
THE DREAMSilicon “superchips” that integrateelectronic and optical circuitry. CURRENT STATUSThere is no doubt that 2004represents a turning point in thedevelopment of silicon photonics.In February, Intel, the UScomputer-chip expert, reported ahigh-speed silicon (1 GHz) opticalmodulator.
Then, in November, scientists atthe University of California, LosAngeles (UCLA), US, made theheadlines when they demonstratedthe world’s first silicon laser – asilicon waveguide that uses theRaman effect and emitspicosecond pulses at 1.68 µm.Ultimately, such devices could beintegrated into electronics to create
powerful “one-chip solutions”. “If you open an optical module
today, you will see two types ofcomponents in there. There is alaser, an amplifier, or a modulatorchip that is made in GaAs or InP,and then there are the electronicICs that are made of silicon,”Bahram Jalali of UCLA told OLE.“The first silicon photonic productswill be single-chip, all-siliconversions of these products.”
As well as Intel expressinginterest in silicon photonics, thesemiconductor specialistSTMicroelectronics has recentlydemonstrated silicon LEDs thatemit green light.FUTURE CHALLENGESPerhaps the biggest challengesfacing silicon photonics are related
to market acceptance anddemand. “The market size is stilltoo small to justify integratedsolutions,” commented Jalali. “Ifvolume is low, the cost per chip willbe high and no-one will buy it. Forsilicon photonics to “fly”, we needto see the market for opticalproducts improve significantly.”TIMELINEAccording to Jalali, it may only be afew years before the first siliconphotonic devices start to hit themarket. “I think we will seebreakthroughs in 2005 withcommercial deployment appearingin 2007,” he told OLE. “Examplesof these include amplifiers, opticalmodulators and Raman lasers withtheir driver and control circuitryintegrated onto the same chip.”
Silicon photonics Flexible opportunities: by inkjet printing organic ligonto a plastic substrate, it is possible to make ultra
Organic achievement: the world’s first 40 inch colo
Silicon success: STMicroelectronics’ array of siliconintegrating electronics and optics on the same chip
PHOTONICS DEVELOPMENT
29OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
ES COMING OF AGE
THE DREAMA cost-effective laser that not onlydisplaces incumbent technology inindustrial applications, but opensup new markets.CURRENT STATUSThe fibre laser has long beentouted as a source offeringefficient operation, high beam-quality and maintenance-freeoperation. The big issue now isliving up to these expectations.
In the current market, fibre laserdevelopment appears to fall intothree camps: high-powercontinuous-wave (CW), pulsed andultrafast sources. Over the pastfew years, many companies haveemerged and firms such as SPI(UK) and IPG Photonics (US) arenow offering kilowatt-classsystems for industrial applications.
“The exciting thing is that thesecompanies are now starting to seetraction and adoption by the end-user,” Andrew Brown, Aculight’sdirector of business developmenttold OLE. “Fibre lasers can providemulti-kilowatt output with a near-diffraction-limited beam quality,but the technology still has toprove itself. We have to bedelivering lasers to the end-usersthat make a difference either interms of better performance, costor reliability.”FUTURE CHALLENGESThe clear goal for fibre lasers is topenetrate industrial applications.However, developers still havesome challenges to overcome andissues to think about.
Top of this list is cost. Fibrelasers have to be cost-competitivewith sources such as the CO2 laseror the Nd:YAG laser to be adoptedby industrial applications wherethe bottom line is crucial. “It’s notjust the price of the laser, it’s theoverall cost over the entire lifetimeof the product,” said Brown.“Reduced power consumption andcost of infrastructure are alsosignificant. I think that these willbe some of the metrics people willbe looking at over the next year.”
The pump diodes used in high-power CW fibre lasers account fora significant percentage of thecost of the overall system. Brownbelieves that improved high-brightness, high-power, lower-costdiodes are a future technologyworth investing in.
Another issue is the fibresthemselves. All of the high-powerCW systems have used ytterbium-doped fibres and emit between1040 and 1080 nm. According toBrown, continued development offibre will provide fundamentallaser sources at new wavelengthsand a means to access additionalwavelength regions.
“People are working on 1.5 and2 µm as well as polarization-maintaining fibres,” Brown said.“Aculight has also got CW fibre-lasers pumping single-frequencytunable multi-watt-level sources inthe mid-infrared for sensingapplications. We have also justrecently made 60 W of greenlight.”TIMELINEAs more and more applicationsbegin to adopt fibre-lasertechnology and costs begin to fall,2005 could finally be the year inwhich fibre lasers gain a footholdin industrial applications. “Fibrelasers could take market shareaway from diode-pumped solid-state lasers,” said Brown. “Thatmight be a high repetition-rate Q-switched vanadate laser or atens-of-watts laser for markingapplications.”
Overall, it is likely that 2005 willbe a good year for the fibre laser.“There is a great deal of room inthe market for lots of othercompanies,” Brown concluded. “Ithink that there are many factorsconverging, whether it be on themarket, technology or commercialfront. They are definitely comingtogether to turn this intosomething that is real.” If this istrue, it is likely there will be morenews of fibre laser sales andinstallations over the next year.
Fibre lasers
ht-emitting materialsathin, flexible displays.
Cunning cross-section: clever designs of optical fibre meanhighly efficient fibre lasers are challenging diode-pumped YAGs.
Optical fibre’s ease of manufacture, high beam-quality and lack ofthermal lensing make it ideal for making high-power sources.
Spin it: 2004 was a turning point in the world of silicon photonics.
ur OLED television.
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Need powerful pulses from your free-running laser? Then purchasing a Q-switch could bethe answer. Rob Swain and Robert Eckardt describe the options available.
Q-switches deliverpowerful pulses
PRODUCT GUIDE
31OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
In many applications, it is desirable to have alaser that emits a series of short, high-energypulses rather than a continuous-wave beam.One of the easiest ways to obtain this pulsedoperation is to place a device called a Q-switch into the laser cavity.
So what exactly is a Q-switch? Put simply,it’s like a camera shutter – a light-valve thatcan be switched on and off. An ideal Q-switch has zero loss in its “off ” state and infi-nite loss in its “on” state, and can switchrapidly between these two states.
The term Q-switch derives from the qualityfactor or “Q” of a laser resonator which relatesto the cavity loss. In order for a resonator tolase, the gain provided by the optical medium,such as a pumped Nd:YAG crystal, must besufficient to overcome the cavity loss. When aQ-switch is turned on, the cavity loss is largeenough (low Q) to inhibit lasing, despite con-tinual pumping of the gain medium. Whenthe Q-switch is turned off, the Q of the cavity isrestored and all of the energy stored in thegain medium is released in a single high-power laser pulse. By repeating this process, atrain of laser pulses is emitted.
In general, most Q-switched lasers aresolid-state, with the highest proportion oper-ating at a wavelength of around 1 µm tocoincide with Nd:YAG lasers. That said, fre-quency conversion is possible after Q-switching to give a high-power visible or UVbeam. Pulse widths are typically in theregion of 1 ms to 1 ns, with repetition rates ofa few hertz up to several hundred kilohertz.
Q-switched lasers are often required whenthe energy delivered to a target is of impor-tance. This leads to a diverse range of appli-cations including: materials processing(marking, cutting, welding, drilling), med-ical (ophthalmology and dermatology), mil-itary (sensing, rangefinding, targetillumination) and scientific research. Oneparticularly widespread use is that of indus-trial laser marking, where laser pulses areused to create convenient permanent markswithout the need for ink.
There are broadly four different flavours ofQ-switch: acousto-optic, electro-optic, pas-sive and mechanical. Each has distinctivequalities and advantages as outlined below.
Acousto-optic Q-switchThis is probably the most common type of Q-switch in use today. A radio-frequency (RF)transducer generates an acoustic (ultra-sonic) wave within an interaction material.This results in a periodic change of refractiveindex in the material and the creation of adiffraction grating.
Light incident on the Q-switch at the Braggangle is diffracted, producing a loss in thelaser resonator. If the loss introduced by theQ-switch is higher than the gain, then lasingceases. Switching off the RF drive power tothe transducer causes the acoustic wave todecay and lasing recommences with a high-
energy pulse.Choosing the correct AO Q-switch for any
given laser can sometimes be a dauntingprocess to the uninitiated. Since good manu-facturers not only cater for an extensiverange of resonator designs with their “stan-dard products”, but also offer custom designsolutions, the possibilities are almost endless.Key parameters to consider are wavelength,optical power density, polarization, beamdiameter, size constraints and mechanicalconfiguration and cooling possibilities. ● Wavelength. Standard wavelengths of1030–1064 nm, 1340 nm and 2050 nm aremost often covered with standardantireflection (AR) “V” coatings. “W” coat-ings or Brewster-angled optics can be
Clev
elan
d Cr
ysta
ls
(Above) A selection of electro-optic Q-switches,showing a wide range of aperture sizes. Suchdevices usually contain the nonlinear crystal BBOor KD*P. (Right) Fig. 1: an electro-optic Q-switch isoften used in a double-pass configuration in orderto reduce the required drive voltage.
polarizerpockels cell
mirrorλ/4
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employed where an extended range isrequired. Historically, Brewster-angleddevices were sometimes selected whereextremely low insertion-loss was important.However, with today’s high-performancecoatings, the advantage is negligible and faroutweighed by the difficult alignment needed.● Materials and optical power density.Although there are numerous acousto-opticinteraction materials, some of the higher-efficiency choices are limited by their laserdamage threshold. Q-switch applications are
essentially high power and this makes laserdamage a critical parameter. For the major-ity of applications (particularly in the 1 µmrange), the material of choice is narrowed totellurium dioxide for low power, crystalquartz for medium power and fused silica forhigh power. Nevertheless, the lower cost ofmanufacture and excellent optical charac-teristics of fused silica make it a popularchoice for all power levels.● Polarization. The acousto-optic interactionis generally polarization-dependant. It is
important to specify the laser’s polarization.● Beam diameter. For a fixed interactionlength, the RF drive power requirement isdirectly proportional to the height of theactive aperture. Hence, in the interest ofminimizing RF power, it is important to keepthis dimension as small as possible withoutconstraining the interaction. If the beamdiameter is larger than the active aperture,leakage can cause problems such as pulse-to-pulse instability. It is also important to con-sider alignment capability. If you choose anactive aperture height very close to the beamdiameter, alignment will be more critical.
● Cooling. Cooling needs are determined bythe RF drive power, which is in turn deter-mined by factors such as beam diameter,polarization state and interaction medium.In low-to-medium-power applications, con-ductive cooling is sufficient. For mostmedium-to-high-power applications wherethe laser is unpolarized, RF power levels aregenerally such that water cooling is essential. ● Size constraints. Good manufacturers arewell aware of the need for compact solutionsand offer a comprehensive range of devicesof varying size. Dimensions will depend onthe interaction material and cooling require-ments. However, today, even high-powerwater-cooled devices can often be supplied ina package that is as small as a matchbox.
Electro-optic Q-switchThe application of an electric field to anelectro-optic material can change its refractiveindex. The phenomenon is known as thePockels effect and is often used to rotate thepolarization of an incoming optical beam. Byplacing an electro-optic material between twocrossed polarizers, it is possible to make a
PRODUCT GUIDE
32 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
Bragg angle rotation
transducer
zero order
1st order
input beam
electrode
beam heightadjustment
A typical acousto-optic Q-switch (top) and a diagramshowing its principle of operation (Fig. 2).
Goo
ch &
Hou
sego
Q-switch. When a half wave-voltage is appliedto the cell, the resulting linear polarization isrotated through 90°and transmitted throughthe crossed polarizer. With no voltage present,transmission of the light beam is blocked.
Pockels cells are frequently used in adouble-pass configuration for laser Q-switching applications (figure 1, p31) inorder to decrease the required drive voltage.The latter depends on the material and varieswith the optical wavelength.
The material potassium di-deuteriumphosphate (KD*P) is widely used in electro-optic switches and modulators. Extinctionratios for these cells are typically greater than2000:1 in the visible and near-infrared, andvalues of 5000:1 are often attained.
Fast switching speeds, when risetimes are afew nanoseconds, require careful attention tothe design of both the cell and the electricaldriver. Rectangular-gated transmissionperiods as short as a few nanoseconds usuallyrequire the cell to be part of an electricaltransmission line. For Q-switching with longgate times or a high-repetition rate, care mustbe taken to avoid acoustic ringing in the cell.
The latter occurs because materials withan electro-optic response also often have apiezoelectric response. The rapid switching ofelectric field can set up acoustic vibrationsthat alter the transmission of the Q-switch.These problems may be alleviated by celldesign and careful choice of material. Forexample, the electro-optic material beta bar-ium borate (BBO) has a small piezoelectricresponse relative to its electro-optic responseand is a good choice for high-frequencyresponse. BBO cells have been used for laserQ-switching at repetition rates in excess of100 kHz. KD*P cells are typically used for Q-switching at rates of below 10 kHz.
BBO also offers advantages for high aver-age-power applications. KD*P still retains anintrinsic absorption of approximately0.002 cm–1 at 1064 nm. Average power lim-its are approximately 20 W for 1 cm diameterKD*P cells. Small beams of the order of 1 mmin diameter can have problems with thermalfocusing. Single-shot laser-induced damagethresholds are roughly 15 J/cm2 in 10 nspulses and are usually limited by cell win-dows. It is advisable to stay below this valueby about a factor of 10 for multiple-pulseapplications. The BBO crystal alone has goodaverage power capability. Water-cooled BBOcells have operated at 200 W average power.
Mechanical Q-switchThis is usually a spinning mirror. The cavityQ goes high (low loss) when the cavity mir-rors are in alignment. The problems with thistechnique are that it requires physically largecomponents and the switching speed is slow.
However, it is useful at wavelengths where noother method is available. Mechanical Q-switches are rarely found today in industrialor medical applications.
Passive Q-switchIn passive Q-switching, a saturable absorberis used to introduce a variable loss in a lasercavity. As light builds up in the cavity, theabsorber saturates and “bleaches”, openingthe cavity for a very short period of time. Con-temporary methods use doped garnets. The
benefits of saturable absorbers are that thereis only one optical component and no elec-tronics. The limitations are wavelength, syn-chronization and pulse energy variability. ■■
Rob Swain is an applications engineer at Gooch &Housego group, a UK manufacturer of acousto-optic devices. Robert Eckhardt is senior staffscientist at Cleveland Crystals, a US-basedmanufacturer of electro-optic devices. For moreinformation, visit www.goochandhousego.com andwww.clevelandcrystals.com.
PRODUCT GUIDE
OpticalInstrumentation
Laser Power&Energy Meters
European Calibration & Service Centre
Laser BeamAnalysis
European Calibration & Service Centre
Photometry &Colorimetry
European Calibration & Service Centre
Laser Diode PowerSupplies
For CW & QCW Lasers
Wavelength &Spectral Analysis
Wavefront Analysis
BFi OPTiLAS European Offices : Belgium: [email protected]: [email protected] - France: [email protected]
Germany: [email protected] - Italy: [email protected]: [email protected] - The Netherlands: [email protected]
Sweden: [email protected] - UK: [email protected]
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33OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
Innovationdoesn’t happen
in the dark
spie.org/events/dss
Defense and Security Symposium participants lead the way in
the development and transfer of light-enabled technologies for
safety and security. Your contribution matters!
Building a Better World with Light
28 March-1 April 2005Orlando (Kissimmee), Florida USA
Conferences • Courses • Exhibition
Tel: +1 360 676 3290 • [email protected]
SHOW PREVIEW SAN JOSE, 22–27 JANUARY
PHOTONICS WEST 2005
PRODUCTS p41
HIGHLIGHTS p36
BIOS 2005
OPTO 2005
LASE 2005
MOEMS–MEMS 2005
All the leading firms willbe showcasing theirlatest products at theexhibition. We bring youa sample selection.
Your guide to the sessions and productsnot to be missed at this year’s event
Your chance to discover all of the latestfindings in the world of biomedical optics
Find out what’s hot in the world ofoptoelectronics and semiconductors
The latest research and developmentsin laser technology and its applications
Catch up with recent research intoMEMS, MOEMS and microfabrication
CONTENTS
HIGHLIGHTS
BIOS 2005With 29 dedicated Biomedical Optics (BiOS)conferences being held at Photonics West, theHot Topics session gives delegates an opportu-nity to get a snapshot of some of the innova-tive research being presented. And judging bypast performances, this popular Saturday-night session will be standing-room only.
This year’s session will feature eight talkson topics ranging from brain imaging andoptical coherence tomography, to early can-cer detection and quantum dots. Eric Mazurfrom Harvard University, US, will also be talk-ing about the use of ultrashort laser pulses inbiological applications.
After giving delegates a rundown of theadvantages of femtosecond lasers for med-ical applications, Mazur will move on toshow some uses of low-energy, high-powerpulses in nonlinear techniques such as two-
photon imaging. He will then discuss how tomanipulate matter, such as opening up cellmembranes or cutting chromosomes usingfemtosecond pulses. In contrast to imagingwhich uses 10 pJ pulses, manipulationrequires higher-energy pulses in the order of1 nJ to vaporize tiny volumes of material.
“I will also highlight the fact that these twothings can be done simultaneously, with thesame pulse-train coming out of the oscilla-tor,” Mazur told OLE. “You can use most ofthe pulse train to do the imaging and thenallow through a higher-energy pulse to dothe manipulation.”
One application that Mazur will discuss isusing sub-100 fs pulses to study the brain ofa tiny nematode worm called C Elegans.Made up of only 1300 cells, this worm is100 µm long and 20 µm wide with a braincontaining only 301 neurons.
“People have not had the tools to study thewiring diagram of the neural networkbefore,” said Mazur. “We can snip the con-nection between two neurons and see how itaffects the nematode’s behaviour.”
To do this, Mazur’s group uses high-magnification microscope objectives, typi-cally 1.2–1.45 NA, to focus a beam down toa spot of around 350 nm. This means thatthe pulses have the highest intensity at thelowest energy, which avoids damaging anyother part of the nematode.
Once they have severed the link betweenthe neurons, the researchers carry out a con-trolled study to see how the behaviour of acontrol group differs to the group that hasbeen operated on.
“We have about one year’s experiencedoing this and we are starting to shed somelight on the animal’s behaviour,” said Mazur.“We are beginning to understand how thewhole diagram is wired – it’s fascinating.”
36 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
BIOS 2005 36 OPTO 2005 37 L ASE 2005 38 MOEMS–MEMS 2005 39
A look at some of the hotpresentations at this year’sBiOS, OPTO, LASE andMOEMS–MEMS symposia atPhotonics West 2005.
The BiOS technical symposium runs fromSaturday 22 January to Thursday 27 January.As in previous years, the program is split intofive main themes: photonic therapeutics anddiagnostics; clinical technologies andsystems; tissue optics; biomedicalspectroscopy; and nano/biophotonics. Thereare a total of 29 separate conferences underthese broad themes.
A dedicated free-to-attend biomedicalexhibition will be held on Saturday 22 Januarybetween 1.00 p.m. and 5.00 p.m. and Sunday23 January between 10.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m.
BiOS Hot Topics sessionSaturday 22 January 7.00–9.30 p.m.
Hot Topics under discussionBrain imagingArjun Yodh, University of Pennsylvania, US
Molecular imagingSamuel Achilefu, Washington University, US
Cellular imaging using ultrashort laser pulsesEric Mazur, Harvard University, US
Advances in full-field coherence imaging
Claude Bocarra, EPFL, France
Fourier/spectral domain OCTJohannes F de Boer, Harvard University, US
Nanoshells and quantum dotsNaomi Halas, Rice University, US
Advances in ophthalmologyFabrice Manns, University of Miami, US
Early cancer detectionVadim Backman, Northwestern University, US
Molecular imaging workshopSunday 23 January 6.00–8.00 p.m.
Astrobiotechnology panel discussionMonday 24 January 7.30–9.00 p.m.
Selected invited papersCombination photodynamic and differentiationtherapy: preclinical and clinical studiesT Hasan et al, Harvard Medical School, US [Paper 5689-03] Saturday 8.50–10.45 a.m.
Nonlinear microscopy with shaped
femtosecond pulsesY Silberberg et al, Weizmann Institute ofScience, Israel [Paper 5700-10] Sunday 1.30–5.30 p.m.
Picosecond fluorescence lifetime imagingmicroscope for imaging of living glioma cellsQ Fang et al, Cedars-Sinai Medical Ctr, US [Paper 5699-05] Monday 10.30 a.m. – 12.20 p.m.
Nanoscale silicon optical biosensorsP M Fauchet, University of Rochester, US [Paper 5705-09] Monday 1.30–2.40 p.m.
Integrated terahertz sensors for label-freeanalysis of genesP G Haring Bolivar, RWTH-Aachen, Germany [Paper 5692-40] Tuesday 2.00–3.40 p.m.
A new way to trap and manipulate nanoscaleobjects in solutionA E Cohen et al, Stanford University, US [Paper 5699-44] Wednesday 9.50–11.50 a.m.
ESSENTIAL INFORMATION: BIOS 2005
Changing behaviour: severing the neuron affectsthe way the worm senses temperature.
Eric
Maz
ur
The intriguing concept of slowing down andeven stopping light will be the focus of ConnieChang-Hasnain’s plenary talk for the Opto-electronics symposium at 9.20 a.m. on Tues-day 25 January. A professor of electricalengineering and computer sciences at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, Chang-Hasnain recently made the headlines in thefield. In October 2004, her group reportedthe first demonstration of slowing light downin a semiconductor.
The result is a step towards the developmentof circuitry that could act as an optical bufferor time delay that can temporarily store orretime data pulses of light. By passing lightthrough 15 GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells,the US research team succeeded in dramati-cally reducing the group velocity of a lightpulse to just 6 miles/s (9600 m/s).
“It’s about twice as fast as an orbitingspace shuttle,” said Chang-Hasnain. “Thisachievement marks a major milestone onthe road to faster optical networks andhigher-performance communications.”
Previously, scientists had been able to slowdown light by passing it through crystals ofruby and alexandrite, or a gas. For example,
in 2003 physicists at Harvard Universityactually managed to bring light to a tempo-rary halt for 10–20 ms in a gas of rubidiumatoms. However, the use of semiconductorsto control light is appealing as they are much
easier to combine with electronics and theyhave a broad bandwidth.
“Semiconductors have between 1 millionand 1 billion times broader bandwidth capac-ity than atomic gas or crystal,” said Chang-Hasnain. “This brings real-world practicalityto telecommunications and network appli-cations. Another advantage of using semi-conductors is the possibility of cost-effectiveintegration into circuitry – specifically pho-tonic integrated circuits.”
The Berkeley experiments rely on creat-ing a phenomenon called “coherent popu-lation oscillation” which slows down thelight. This involves simultaneously shiningtwo laser beams with slightly different fre-quencies (a pump beam and a probe beam)at a semiconductor sample. The two beamsbeat together to create an optical interfer-ence pattern that leads to a much-reducedgroup velocity in the sample.
The pump beam was provided by a Ti:sap-phire laser, and the probe beam was providedby a tunable diode laser. Perhaps the biggestlimitation is that the experiments are cur-rently performed at very low temperatures ofaround 10K. However, the team is now work-ing on slowing light at room temperature.
37OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
SHOW PREVIEW
PHOTONICS WEST HIGHLIGHTS
The Optoelectronics 2005 technical symposiumwill run from Sunday 23 January to Thursday 27January. The program is split into six themes:optoelectronic materials and devices; photonicintegration; nanotechnologies in photonics;advanced optoelectronic applications;semiconductor lasers and LEDs; and displaysand holography. A total of 27 separateconference streams are scheduled.
Plenary sessionTuesday 25 January
Recent trends in chip-scale high-powermicrostructured fiber lasersNasser Peyghambarian, University of Arizona, US8.40–9.20 a.m.
Slowing and stopping lightConnie Chang-Hasnain, University of California at Berkeley9.20–10.00 a.m.
Selected invited papersNovel trends in ultrafast fiber lasersI Hartl, IMRA America, US [Paper 5723-02]
Monday 8.00–10.10 a.m.
New holey quantum cascade lasersF Capasso et al, Harvard University, US [Paper 5732-24] Monday 10.20 a.m. – 12.20 p.m.
Negative refraction and subwavelengthfocusing using photonic crystalsE Ozbay, Bilkent University, Turkey [Paper 5733-13] Monday 3.30 p.m.
Deep ultraviolet light-emitting diodes andphotodetectors for UV communicationM Razeghi, Northwestern University, US [Paper 5729-04]Tuesday 1.30 p.m.
Advances in THz quantum cascade lasers:fulfilling the application potentialA Tredicucci, Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy [Paper 5738-20] Tuesday 1.30 p.m.
Challenges for on-chip optical interconnectsK C Kadien et al, Intel, US [Paper 5730-15]
Wednesday 8.20 a.m.
Holographic video display using digitalmicromirrorsM L Huebschman et al, University of Texas, US [Paper 5742-01] Wednesday 8.30 a.m.
Development of a chemical sensor using apolymer optical waveguide fabricated with DNAP P Yaney et al, University of Dayton and AirForce Research Laboratory, US [Paper 5724-38] Wednesday 10.30 a.m. – 12.20 p.m.
Development of high-power green light-emittingdiode dies in piezoelectric GaInN/GaN C Wetzel et al, Rensselaer Polytechnic Instituteand Uniroyal Optoelectronics [Paper 5739-01] Wednesday 1.30 p.m.
Fully integrated optical systems for lab-on-a-chip applicationsS Balslev et al, Danmarks Tekniske University,Denmark [Paper 5730-26] Wednesday 3.30–5.30pm
ESSENTIAL INFORMATION: OPTO 2005
The ability to control the speed of light and evenbring it to a halt inside a semiconductor could leadto important applications in telecommunicationsand optical computing.
OPTO 2005
LASE 2005 plenary speaker Milton Chang ofventure capitalist firm Incubic will be talkingabout his holistic approach to commercial-ization. Chang has a lot to offer buddingindustrialists, having been both entrepre-neur and investor. Currently managingdirector of Incubic, he is former CEO of New-port and New Focus – two firms he took pub-lic in 1971 and 2000.
Chang told OLE that his talk will cover keyquestions such as: “In today’s environment,how can we better start companies, whatshould we [be doing]?” and, “what have welearned from the burst of the hi-tech bubbleto improve the commercialization process?”
In his presentation, Chang will reveal anumber of ways of making the innovationprocess more efficient. “It is a holistic view,promoting the idea that you can’t stay in yourcubby hole and do science or sales and mar-keting,” he explained. “That doesn’t prepareyou for anything else.” Chang prescribes tak-ing the broader view and will include variousbusiness models and case studies to supporthis ideas and show how to start a business.
“The world has changed, in the sense that
engineers and technical people are nowmuch more interested in commercializationand business,” said Chang. “I think it iseverywhere in our industry – people want todo their own thing.”
He acknowledges that the plunge of the
tech sector has brought a lot of valuablelessons to the surface. “To take a scientificinnovation through the commercializationprocess to products that people use is a verylong journey,” said Chang. “If we as a groupcan figure out ways to shorten that path,then we all benefit.”
Having provided first capital to nearly 20companies, Chang is a key player in the ven-ture capital scene and his talk includes a briefupdate on current events in the community.
Also presenting in the plenary session isEric Cornell from NIST/JILA and the Univer-sity of Colorado with a talk entitled “Scienceand technology from ultra-cold atoms”. Cor-nell shares the 2001 Nobel Prize for Physicswith Carl Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle fordiscovering a new state of matter, the Bose-Einstein condensate.
In his plenary talk, Cornell will present sci-entific highlights from the exploration ofcoherent matter and will cover emergingapplications in the field. The year 2005 is aspecial one for Cornell and his colleagues, asit marks the 10th anniversary of the firstobservation of Bose-Einstein condensationin a gas of ultra-cold rubidium atoms.
38 OLE • January 2005• optics.org
SHOW PREVIEW
PHOTONICS WEST HIGHLIGHTS
LASE 2005
ESSENTIAL INFORMATION: L ASE 2005With more than 300 presentations, LASE 2005is divided into five programs: laser sourceengineering; semiconductor lasers and LEDs;nonlinear optics; laser communication andpropagation; and laser micro/nanoengineeringand applications. Conference sessions begin onMonday 24 January and run for four days.
Plenary sessionScience and technology from ultra-cold atomsEric A Cornell, NIST/JILA and the University of ColoradoWednesday 10.30–11.20 a.m.
Concurrent commercialization: the path fromscience to business Milton Chang, IncubicWednesday 11.20 a.m. – 12.10 p.m.
Keynote presentationThe National Ignition Facility: a nationalresource for experimental high-energy-densityand inertial confinement fusion scienceEdward I Moses, University of California andLawrence Livermore National LaboratoryMonday 8.00–8.30 a.m.
LASE hot topics sessionsMonday 8.30–9.15 a.m.
Hot topics under discussionSelf-assembly of tailor-made molecules: a newtechnique for fabricating highly orderedmonolayer filmsFrank Träger, University of Kassel/PhysicsInstitute, Germany
Industrial applications of ultra high-precisionshort-pulse laser processingXinbing Liu, Panasonic Boston Laboratory
Laser processing in microelectronicmanufacturing: status and near-termopportunitiesCorey Dunsky, Coherent
Requirements for long-life micro-channelcoolers for direct diode lasers systemsJohn M Haake, Nuvonyx
New fibre laser approaches enable arbitrarypower scalingDavid N Payne, University of Southampton, UK
Optics at critical intensity: applications tonanoscale fabricationK Ke, E F Hasselbrink and Alan J Hunt,University of Michigan, US
Panel discussionGrand challenges of fibre lasers: from researchto marketThursday 4.00–5.20 p.m.
Selected invited papersHigh-brightness high-power kW-system withtapered diode laser barsB Köhler, G Seibold, A Noeske, S Huke, MHaag, T Brand, J Biesenbach, DILASDiodenlaser, Germany; M Behringer and J Luft,OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, Germany [Paper 5711-10]Monday 3.30–5.20 p.m.
From flashlamp-pumped liquid dye lasers todiode laser pumped solid state dye lasersH R Aldag, Physical Sciences and D H Titterton,Defence Science and Technology Laboratory,UK[Paper 5707-24]Tuesday 10.20 a.m. – 12.10 p.m.
Femtosecond-laser microstructuring of siliconfor novel optoelectronic devicesJ Carey, E Mazur, Harvard University, US[Paper 5714-05]Tuesday 10.25 a.m. – 12.25 p.m.
Milton Chang will show how a holistic approach canimprove the commercialization process.
Incu
bic
This year’s micro and nanofabrication sym-posium gets under way on Monday at9.00 a.m. with the plenary session. With noparallel conferences in the MOEMS–MEMSsymposium running at this time, the sessionoffers delegates a singular opportunity tohear about emerging applications for bothMOEMS and MEMS technology.
First to take the stage is Ming Wu from theUniversity of California at Berkeley, who willconcentrate on three applications of MOEMStechnology. He is followed by Clark Nguyen ofDARPA, who will look at vibrating RF MEMSand their applications in wireless communi-cations. The final talk will be given by YosephBar-Cohen from the Jet Propulsion Labora-tory, US, who will explain how electro-activepolymers can be used as artificial muscles.
In a sneak preview to the session, OLEspoke to Ming Wu to find out which technol-ogy areas he will be discussing. “The firstapplication will be wavelength-division mul-tiplexing [WDM] switches, which are used intelecommunications,” Wu told OLE. “I willalso discuss 3D in vivo endoscopic opticalcoherence tomography [OCT] and optoelec-tronic tweezers, which use direct images ofMOEMS spatial light modulators to manipu-
late microscopic particles and cells.”The crucial components in Wu’s WDM
switches are micromirrors that are able to tiltin two dimensions, which he calls analoguemirrors. Measuring around 100–200 µmacross and designed for operation at 1.3 and1.55 µm, these versatile mirrors are able tomove ±6.7° in each axis.
“We are now able to build a switch whichhas one input and 32 outputs,” said Wu. “Ifyou fire a signal in from one fibre, the mirrorredirects the light in a 2D space and sends it
back to one of 32 output fibres, which arearrayed. Previously, all the fibres would belined up in one dimension.”
Similar micromirrors are used in Wu’s OCTwork. Wu has teamed up with OCT pioneerJames Fujimoto and, after three years’ work,the team has just observed 3D endoscopic OCTimages with a resolution of 12µm. The overallgoal, however, is to achieve cellular resolution.“The analogue mirror is about 1 mm in sizeand the main challenge is getting everythinginto a tiny space of about 5 mm in diameter,”explained Wu. “The higher the resolution, thelarger the mirror, so it’s a compromise.”
The final aspect of Wu’s plenary is the useof a MEMS microdisplay in a so-called opto-electronic tweezer. “We do the manipulationusing optical images rather than single ormultiple beams of lasers. The benefits are thatthe power density is significantly lower thanlaser-based systems,” said Wu. “We use anincoherent source such as a projector lamp.”
Wu will show how this approach can beused to manipulate polystyrene particles andbiological specimens such as E. Coli and whiteblood cells. “We can also do parallel process-ing,” he said. “In the talk, I will show that weare able to do 5 ×4 particles, but this is stillwell below the capacity of the system.”
39OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
SHOW PREVIEW
PHOTONICS WEST HIGHLIGHTS
MOEMS–MEMS 2005
This year’s symposium on micro andnanofabrication (MOEMS–MEMS) starts withthe plenary session on Monday 24 January andruns until Thursday 27 January. Thepresentations have been divided into seventhemed conferences, focusing on topicsincluding the characterization and applicationsof MOEMS and MEMS, microfluidics and micro-optics.
Plenary sessionNovel applications of MOEMS display andimaging Ming C Wu, University of California, Berkeley, USMonday 9.10–10.00 a.m.
Vibrating RF MEMS overview: applications towireless communicationsClark T C Nguyen, DARPA, USMonday 10.20–11.10 a.m.
Biologically inspired technologies usingartificial muscles Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Jet PropulsionLaboratory/Caltech, USMonday 11.10 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
Panel discussionMOEMS-MEMS: Technology, applications andmarket review. Future trends and roadmap forthe next five years.Tuesday 8.00–10.00 p.m.
Keynote presentationStandard semiconductor packing for high-reliability low-cost MEMS applications K P Harney, Analog Devices, US[Paper 5716-01]Monday 1.10–1.50 p.m.
Adaptive optics technical group meeting,featuring a panel discussion on recent progressin adaptive opticsWednesday 7.30–9.00 p.m.
Selected invited papersFrom lab-on-a-chip to lab-in-a-cell A van den Berg, University of Twente,Netherlands [Paper 5718-01]Monday 1.30–3.30 p.m.
Optical MEMS: boom, bust and beyond R S Payne, Polychromix, US
[Paper 5717-11]Tuesday 8.30 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
A miniature confocal optical scanningmicroscope for endoscopes K Murakami, Olympus, Japan[Paper 5721-13]Tuesday 10.50 a.m. – 12.50 p.m.
Microscale immunosensors for biologicalagents W R Heineman, University of Cincinnati, US[Paper 5718-20]Tuesday 1.30–3.10 p.m.
Holographic fabrication of photonic crystalsD N Sharp et al, University of Oxford, UK[Paper 5720-01]Wednesday 8.20–10.20 a.m.
Metallic and dielectric nanostructures forefficient light emitters A Scherer, California Institute of Technology, US[Paper 5720-19]Thursday 8.30–10.10 a.m.
ESSENTIAL INFORMATION: MOEMS–MEMS 2005
Micromirrors that tilt in two dimensions could beuseful in both telecoms and medical applications.
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(spinel) passive Q-switchesCoatings, ring holders, thermocontrollers and ovens
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(spinel) passive Q-switchesCoatings, ring holders, thermocontrollers and ovens
Technical assistanceand calculations
BBO, LBO, KTP, KD*P, LiIOAgGaSe , AgGaS , GaSe
BBO, KDP, LiIO , AgGaSKGW, KYW, Ba(NO )Yb:KGW/KYW, Ti:Sapphire, Nd:YVO /YLF, Er:glass/YAG
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Conference Secretariat:European Physical Society, BP 213668060 Mulhouse Cedex, FranceTel: +33 389 32 94 42 • Fax: +33 389 32 94 49Email: [email protected] • website: www.eps.org
Sponsored by • European Physical Society/Quantum Electronics and Optics
Division• IEEE/Lasers and Electro-Optics Society• Optical Society of America
The conference will be held at the Munich International Congress Centre in conjunction with Laser 2005World of Photonics, the largest European exhibition of laser and electro-optic equipment and services.
Europe's premier joint conference on lasers, electro-optics and fundamental quantum electronics.
www.cleoeurope.org
Short Course• M. Kristensen, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Plenary Speakers• A.Tünnermann, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany• A. Zeilinger, University of Vienna, Austria
Tutorial Speakers• D.H.A. Blank, University of Twente, Enschede,The Netherlands• A. Gaeta, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA• N. Lütkenhaus, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen,
Germany• K.J.Vahala, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
Keynote Speakers• J. Faist, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland• N. Gisin, University of Geneva, Switzerland• R. Grimm, University of Innsbruck, Austria• J.S. Harris, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA• A. Imamoglu, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH),
Zürich, Switzerland• A. L'Huillier, University of Lund, Sweden• R. J. D. Miller, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada• D.S.Wiersma, European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy
(LENS), Sesto-Fiorentino (Florence), Italy
Digital video microscopeMoritex USA
Moritex USA says itsMS-804 Scopemanrepresents the state-of-the-art in digital videomicroscopy. On show atPhotonics West, theMS-804 is an
affordable micro-inspection station combininghigh performance with flexibility and usability.
The system uses a CCD camera and LEDillumination and produces images with1280 ×960 pixels. Moritex says the MS-804also has a number of new features such asselectable shutter speed and the ability tocombine “bright” and “dark” images to increasethe dynamic range. A digital zoom feature alsoenables rapid magnification.
The MS-804 is available with a range of zoomlenses (16–200×), x, y and z stages, cameramounts and a variety of imaging peripherals.www.moritexusa.comBooth 6319
Industrial DPSS laserBavarian Photonics
The latest member ofBavarian Photonics’family of Aion industrialDPSS lasers will be ondisplay at PhotonicsWest. Offeringnanosecond pulses athigh repetition rates,
the Aion Industrial 355-5-V is said to suitapplications such as solar-cell structuring, wafermachining and UV stereolithography.
Based on a frequency-tripled Nd:YVO4, thelaser offers power levels of up to 5 W at 355 nm.Energy per pulse is said to be up to 250 µJ whilethe maximum repetition rate is 100 kHz. Thesystem’s peak power exceeds 15 kW when itemits 25 ns pulses at a repetition rate of 50 kHz.
The company says the laser has an M2 of lessthan 1.5 and a pulse-to-pulse stability of lessthan 3% rms.www.bavarian-photonics.comBooth 1221
DPSS laserCoboltCobolt of Sweden says its Dual Calypso systemhas been developed as a direct replacement forargon-ion lasers. The laser emits 491 nm and532 nm in a single beam with an output powerof 20 mW/colour. The Dual Calypso is also
compact and boasts a low noise of less than0.3% and low power-consumption.
According to Cobolt, the Dual Calypso wouldbe an ideal substitute for the argon-ion lasersfound in bioanalytical instruments that use491/488 nm and 532 nm excitation for laser-induced fluorescence. The Cobolt Calypso isalso available in a single-line version emitting50 mW at 491 nm. www.cobolt.seBooth 6411
Spectrometer softwareAvantes
Users of Avantes’AvaSpec spectrometersshould visit thecompany’s booth to seethe latest version of itsAvaSoft control
software. Version 6.2 includes multiple USBcommunication allowing several versions of thesoftware to run simultaneously on a PC.
According to Avantes, this enables thesoftware to be applied to applications wherespectra from more than eight spectrometerchannels need to be taken simultaneously.
The AvaSoft 6.2 Irradiance application add-onhas also been completely redesigned. Now thecolorimetric, photometric and radiometric data
can be displayed on an irradiance chart(including a chromaticity diagram) or in time-series mode. Typical LED measurementparameters have been added, such as dominantwavelength, purity, candela, full-width half-maximum centroid and centre wavelength.www.avantes.comBooth 1506
Single-photon detectorid Quantique
id Quantique ofSwitzerland will presentits compact single-photon detectionmodule for visiblewavelengths at this
year’s show. Named the SPDM-VIS, the moduleis based on a silicon avalanche photodiodedesigned specifically for photon-countingapplications, and it operates in Geiger mode.
The SPDM-VIS offers a detection efficiency ofup to 50%, dark count rate of 200 Hz and atiming resolution of 50 ps. It is said to suitapplications such as fluorescence andluminescence detection, time-correlated photoncounting, single molecule detection and decay-time measurements.www.idquantique.comBooth 5118
SHOW PREVIEW : PRODUCTS
41OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
We’ve put together a sample of just someof the new products on offer at this year’sPhotonics West show in San Jose, US.
Supercontinuum sourceKoheras
Visitors interested inKoheras’ booth will beable to see its SuperKsupercontinuumsources and its Boostikfibre laser system.The SuperK comes in
two standard models: the SuperK-Blue and theSuperK-Red. The blue version provides a flatspectrum from 425 to 575 nm and an averageoutput power of 10–15 mW, while the redsystem emits a flat, broad spectrum from 575 to2000 nm with an average power of greater than100 mW.
The Boostik is a single-frequency distributed-feedback fibre laser with output power of up to3 W. The lasing wavelength is selectable in the1040–1130 nm and 1530–1560 nm ranges. Itis offered as a turnkey 19-inch rack system.www.koheras.comBooth 1838
Translation stagePI
PI will unveil what itsays is the smallest andhighest-resolutionclosed-loop XYZnanomanipulation andscanning stage at this
year’s show. The stage has been named thePicoCube due to its 50 pm resolution.
According to PI, PicoCube was designed toovercome the limitations of open-loop piezo-tube-based scanners. The PicoCube is based oncompact solid piezo drivers and employs non-contact capacitive sensors for positionfeedback. Its low inertia gives a resonantfrequency of 10 kHz, which PI says is importantfor high-speed scanning applications such asscanning probe microscopy. An XY version isalso available.www.pi.wsBooth 815
Integrating spheresSphereOptics
A series of integratingsphere luminance andradiance light-sourcesystems for test andcalibration of electronicimaging devices, CCDarrays and multi-
spectral cameras will be on display atSphereOptics’ booth.
The products are available with sphere sizesof 15 cm to 2 m, each with an output portdesigned to provide uniform luminance of ±1%over the entire port.
Three versatile radiance-output levels are
available – low, mid and high – to meetapplications in night vision, satellite imageryand quantum efficiency. All models areequipped with precision light-sourceassemblies, variable attenuators andcontrollers, power supplies, operating softwareand NIST traceable calibration. www.sphereoptics.comBooth 6527
PhotoreceiversFEMTO Messtechnik
Visitors to FEMTO’sbooth can view a rangeof signal recoverycomponents includingits HSA-X-S series ofultra-high-speedphotoreceivers. Thedevices have a rise-timeof 180 ps and canmeasure fast-opticalsignals with bandwidthof up to 2 GHz.
Two models with either a built-in Si or InGaAsphotodiode cover the spectral range from 320to 1700 nm. The photoreceivers incorporate alow-noise GHz amplifier with an electrical gain of40 dB. The minimum NEP is 14 pW/√Hz (at1550 nm) which allows measurement of opticalpowers down to the 1 µW range.
The maximum spectral responsivity is0.95 A/W, giving a maximum conversion gain ofup to 4.7 ×103 V/W. Customized photoreceiverswith fibre-optic input, gain of up to 60 dB,modified bandwidth or optimized spectralsensitivity are also available.www.femto.deBooth 715
Gradium lensesEdmund Industrial Optics
Edmund Optics says itsGradium lenses exploitadvances in themanufacturing of axialgradient glass toimprove lens
performance. According to Edmund, therefractive index can change by as much as 0.15from the front surface to the back surface. Thischange in index allows for the correction ofsystem aberrations – especially spherical – andthis yields better images.
The lenses are said to be ideal for laser-focusing applications, providing smaller spot-sizes compared to those of standardcounterparts. Two broadband antireflectioncoating options are available that cover a largerange of visible and near-infrared laserwavelengths.www.edmundoptics.com Booth 633
SHOW PREVIEW : PRODUCTS
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Stepper motorMelles Griot
Melles Griot will bepresenting a steppermotor system (model07EAS503) that can beused to automatemanual translation and
rotation stages. The unit includes stepper motoractuators, a combined drive/controller andapplication-ready software.
The actuators are available in standard andhigh-load versions with either a 12 or 25 mmtravel range. Each has non-rotating spindles toreduce contact-point friction and boasts speedsof up to 4 mm/s. According to Melles, theactuator can be fitted to most linear or rotationstages in place of a manual drive.
The controllers come in either one- or two-channel versions but, through its USBconnection, the system can control up to 20actuators from a single host computer. Thestepper motor controller comes with ActiveXcontrols for programming complex motion.www.mellesgriot.comBooth 933
Cross-correlatorDel Mar Ventures
Del Mar Ventures will bedemonstrating its third-order cross-correlatorsystem at its booth thisyear. The firm says theproduct is ideal for
looking at the output from amplifiedfemtosecond laser systems.
With a high temporal resolution over a long(almost 1 ns) window, the device is said toreveal pulse features that are usually missed. Itmeasures parameters such as the contrast ratioof laser pulses, determining pulse pedestal, pre-and post-pulses and amplified spontaneousemission in femtosecond systems. It alsoprovides information about the cross-correlationfunction of pulse intensity on a femtosecondscale and can be used for the alignment of high-power femtosecond lasers. The cross-correlatorconnects to a PC through a USB interface. www.femtosecondsystems.comBooth 6317
Optical design softwareLambda Research
TracePro 3.3, the latestversion of LambdaResearch’s designsoftware, will bedemonstrated at the
firm’s booth this year. The version includes anenhanced RepTile algorithm which can simulatemillions of surface features used for designingbacklights in flat-panel displays.
Other developments in this version includeSpatial Corporation’s ACIS R14 solid modellingkernel, upgraded property editors, updates inthe non-ray-splitting mode, enhancements inirradiance/illumination maps, ensquared energyirradiance viewing and enhanced ray selectioncriteria for irradiance and candela maps. www.lambdares.comBooth 137
Ti:sapphire laserKapteyn-Murnane Laboratories
Kapteyn-MurnaneLaboratories of the USwill introduce theCASCADE – a cavity-dumped Ti:sapphirelaser system. By
incorporating an acousto-optic modulator intothe cavity of a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser,KMLabs says that high-intensity intracavitypulses can be extracted with energies of morethan 30 nJ, 5–10 times that of a standardmode-locked Ti:sapphire laser.
The laser’s repetition rate can be variedbetween 40 kHz and 2 MHz. Additionally, withthe cavity dumper turned off, the laser can alsobe used as a standard 80 MHz repetition-ratefemtosecond system. This laser is said to suitnonlinear microscopy, ultrafast spectroscopyapplications and harmonic generation, as wellas ultrafast laser micromachining.www.kmlabs.comBooth 1600
Femtosecond laserThorlabs
Thorlabs will announcea family of fibre-coupled femtosecondlasers at this year’sexhibition. Thepassively mode-lockedlasers of the FSL1010series are
recommended for applications in which shortpulses, high peak-power and stable repetitionrates are required, such as two-photon-fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy.
The FSL1010 provides pulse lengths of lessthan 150 fs, a centre wavelength of 1550 nmand a fixed repetition rate of 80 MHz. Alternativerepetition rates are available on request. Eachbenchtop unit automatically aligns to anoptimized operating point after power-on andmaintains stable operation without adjustmentsby the user.
Thorlabs offers two models with differentaverage output powers: 10 mW or 150 mW. Afrequency-doubled version at 780 nm will beavailable soon.www.thorlabs.comBooth 1233
SHOW PREVIEW : PRODUCTS
OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
WaveplatesFoctek Photonics
A range of waveplatesand polarizers will beon display at FoctekPhotonics’ booth. TheChina-based firm says it
has various kinds of waveplates available instock including quarter/half-zero order, low-order and dual-wavelength components inepoxy-cemented, optically-contacted and air-spaced versions. Sizes vary from 70 mm indiameter to 0.03 mm in thickness.
The firm will also display a range of polarizersincluding Glan-Taylor, Glan-Laser, Glan-Thompson, Wollaston and Rochon componentsas well as polarization beamsplitters.www.foctek.comBooth 6403
DUV reflective coatingActon Research
Representatives fromActon Research will beon hand to discuss thefirm’s #1900 opticalcoating. The #1900 is a
DUV broadband Al+MgF2 coating which provides≥88% reflectance at 193 nm.
Acton says the coating is useful for makers ofsemiconductor metrology equipment and isused in applications including ellipsometry andthin-film measurement systems. The firm addsthat #1900 is often selected as a coating toenhance the performance of microscopeobjectives or spectrophotometers operating atDUV wavelengths.
According to Acton, #1900 can be applied toa variety of available glass substrates or tocustomer-supplied material. www.acton-research.comBooth 1704
Silicon APDsLaser Components
Laser Components willannounce the roll-out ofits latest siliconavalanche photodiodes(APDs) at this year’sshow. The SAE series ofAPDs is produced on4 inch silicon wafers,
has high sensitivity between 400 and 1100 nm,and short rise-times. Models are available with achip diameter of 230 µm and 500 µm integratedin a hermetically-sealed TO-18 package.
The firm says the APDs work well with itsexisting 850 nm and 905 nm pulsed laserdiodes in applications including rangefinding,safety scanners and speed control.www.lasercomponents.comBooth 1621
Aspherical optics ingeneric
Visitors looking to find asupplier of customizedaspheric macro-cylindrical opticsshould stop byingeneric’s booth to
discuss their application’s requirements. Typicalapplications for these optics are said to includereproductive technologies, optical data transfer,biomedical science and metrology.
The firm guarantees that its macro-opticshave form accuracy in the sub-micrometre rangeand surface quality in the nanometre range. Thefirm says it can supply lenses with lateraldimensions in excess of 30 mm in width orlength. It also supplies micro-optics forsemiconductor lasers.www.ingeneric.comBooth 6042
Ultrafast fibre laserInnolight
InnoLight of Germanywill unveil its Allegroline of ultrafast fibrelasers at PhotonicsWest. The firm says thatthe Allegro passively
mode-locked erbium fibre lasers emit pulses ofless than 100 fs in duration with an averageoutput power of more than 10 mW at arepetition rate of about 60 MHz.
The emission has a spectral bandwidth ofmore than 50 nm and is centred at the standardtelecommunication wavelength of 1.55 µm.Based on a compact all-fibre ring-laser design,this system has a footprint of less than 220 cm2.Allegro lasers come with a dedicated controlelectronics unit and do not require anyadditional cooling devices. www.innolight.deBooth 1427
Erbium glass microlaserKigre
US firm Kigre, amanufacturer of solid-state laser componentsand materials, hasdeveloped a compacthigh-efficiency diode-pumped erbium glass
microlaser on show at this year’s exhibition.Dubbed MK-88, the device produces 4–5 mJ(1540 nm) Q-switched pulses at 20 Hzrepetition-rate with a 7 ns pulse width.www.kigre.comBooth 244
SHOW PREVIEW : PRODUCTS
47OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
109 Smith Place, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA • Tel: (617) 441-0600 • Fax: (617) 497-8800 • www.cambridgetechnology.com
The fastest scanners on the market…just got faster.Some might say we’re obsessed with speed. Perhaps that explains howwe can consistently deliver the industry’s fastest and most accurategalvanometers and servo drivers. Like our new H line of 62xx galvos –pushing the technology envelope with better performance and speedsthat are 25% faster than what’s available in today’s market.
Our new driver boards are pretty speedy, too.We’re also introducing two new servo-driver boards. A dual-axisanalog servo that provides a 50% board space reduction and higherspeed at lower cost, and a self-tuning digital servo driver that deliversspeeds faster than analog servo technology.
■ New 6215H GalvanometerHighest frequency galvo in the marketIdeal for high-speed raster scan applications
■ 62xxH Series Galvanometers25% torque increase for higher speedsCompatible with 62xx standard product line
■ DC900 State-SpaceDigital Servo DriverSelf-tuning – no adjustment potsUp to twice as fast as analog servos
■ MicroMax 673xxDual-Axis Analog Servo DriverHalf the size of 2 single-axis servosThe most attractive combination ofsize, speed and cost
Talk is cheap. Our prices are not bad, either.While the rest of the industry talks about performance, wedeliver it. So go ahead, put us to the test. We’re making iteven easier by increasing performance without increasing prices.
Speed Freaks
Femtosecond laser amplifierFemtolasers
The Femtopowercompact PRO HPHRfrom Femtolasers is anultrafast Ti:sapphiremultipass amplifier. Thehigh-power high-repetition-rate modelemits pulses of less
than 30 fs and has a spectral width of greaterthan 40 nm. Pulse repetition rates of 1 kHz or3 kHz yield pulse output energies in excess of800 µJ and peak powers of 30 GW. The beamdiameter is 15 mm and the firm says the M2 isless than 2. Applications are said to includematerials processing, high-harmonic generationand pumping of optical parametric oscillators. www.femtolasers.comBooth 1943
Fibre-coupled RGB lasersPhotop Technologies
Photop Technologies ofChina presents its fibre-coupled, polarization-maintaining red, blue
and green lasers. Available with either fibre-endcollimators or connectors, the lasers featurecoupling efficiencies of 80% to singlemode fibreand 90% to multimode fibre. Applications listedby the firm include laser scanning and displays,instrumentation, fault location andbiophotonics. Photop also provides an OEM andODM manufacturing service for green diodelasers, blue diode lasers and module assembly.www.photoptech.comBooth 1927
Optical design softwareOptis
Optis of France hascreated an opticaldesign program thatfully integrates with aCAD package.Optisworks OpticalDesign is available as a
plug-in to the SolidWorks CAD program.The firm says that the technology allows
mechanical designers to work on opticalsystems and to share information with opticaldesigners for the first time. For example, whileinside a CAD interface, designers canimmediately determine all the opticalperformances of a system such as first-orderand third-order performances, sequential andnon-sequential ray-tracing, wavefront surfaces,point spread function and modulation transferfunction, while guaranteeing the mechanicalprecision necessary for an optical system.www.optis-world.comBooth 1111
SHOW PREVIEW : PRODUCTSAre your laser diodes all they’re supposed to be?
Find out with Photon’s Far-Field
Angular Profiler
♦ Provides 3D or XY spatial characterization of LDs, fibers,waveguides and other divergent sources
♦ Quick, easy interfacing to your light source
♦ Wide dynamic range
♦ Single axis measurement in <0.1 second
♦ No need to move source ordetector
www.photon-inc.com
Excimer laserTuiLaser
German excimer laserspecialist TuiLaser hasoptimized its ExciStar S-Industrial high-repetition-rate UV lightsource. Said to be thesafest excimer laser inits class, the device’ssolid-state switch
lowers the maximum voltage within the unit toonly 1.5 kV. The discharge tube, constructedfrom metal and ceramic components, issupported by a re-engineered gas managementsystem. TuiLaser has incorporated amicroprocessor-controlled failsafe manifold toensure a safe work environment. Lasers areavailable with repetition rates of 200, 500 or1000 Hz at 157, 193, 248, 308 and 351 nmwavelengths. The light source is said to suitmicro-drilling and micromachining, opticstesting and inspection, and direct writingoperations. www.tuilaser.comBooth 1221
Laser diode modulesOmicron Laserage Laserprodukte
The LDM405D is thelatest release fromGerman laser diodemanufacturer OmicronLaserageLaserprodukte. Its TEC-cooled devices, whichare available in CW or
modulated versions from 370–980 nm, providean output of more than 100 mW at 405 nm. Thediodes can be modulated up to 500 MHz andcoupled to singlemode fibre with an efficiency ofmore than 75%. Beam diameters range from 1 to 15 mm (1/e2) and the modular unitsfeature adjustable astigmatism. Applicationslisted by the firm include digital imaging, DVD-mastering, confocal laser scanning microscopyand flow cytometry.www.lasersystem.deBooth 6415
Wavefront sensorImagine Optic
Imagine Optic, theFrench opticalmetrology specialist,has expanded its rangeof Shack Hartmannwavefront sensors withthe launch of the HASO128. The new release is
just as accurate as Imagine’s current models(wavefront error of λ/100 rms) but has a spatialresolution that has been increased up to more
SHOW PREVIEW : PRODUCTS
50 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
than 16 000 measurements points. The sensor is factory-calibrated using proven
software and boasts real-time operation, as wellas insensibility to chromatism, flux gradients,vibrations and atmospheric gradients. Potentialapplications include the characterization ofoptical components, lasers and adaptive optics.www.imagine-optic.comBooth 627
Beam profilerPhoton
Photon, a USmanufacturer of beam-profiling optical testequipment, hasreleased the HighPower NanoScan – atool for profiling high-power industrial lasers.The device can analyseCO2 lasers with outputpowers up to a few
kilowatts and Nd:YAG (and other commonlyused industrial lasers) with output powers up toa few hundred watts.
Unlike previous instruments designed tomeasure high-power beams, Photon claims thatits High Power NanoScan can measure thebeam at focus. The beam profiler manages largethermal powers using a combination of reflectivecomponents, heat sinks and a cooling fan.
Beams ranging from 20 µm to 25 mm indiameter can be detected by the unit’spyroelectric detector which responds towavelengths from ultraviolet to over 20 µm. Thetool profiles either continuous-wave or pulsedbeams at kHz repetition rates.www.photon-inc.comBooth 226
WaveplatesGooch & Housego
Gooch & Housego, theUK glass and crystalspecialist, says that itcan provide waveplateswith the highestdamage threshold andretardation tolerancecommercially available.
The range features standard sizes between 5and 100 mm and specifications include:wavefront distortion of λ/10; wavelength ofoperation from 243 to 1550 nm; antireflectioncoating with a reflectance of less than 0.15%;and a very high damage threshold of more than3 GW/cm2 (12 J/cm2 for 3 ns pulse at1064 nm). Plates with quarter-wave and half-wave retardation are available with a toleranceof λ/500 and a scratch-dig of 10–5.www.goochandhousego.comBooth 821
SHOW PREVIEW : PRODUCTS
51OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
PEOPLETo advertise your job vacancies, contact Rob Fisher (tel: +44 (0)117 930 1260; e-mail: [email protected]).
53OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
US
McQuiggan joins Three-Five Systems as senior VPThree-Five Systems has named DavidMcQuiggan as senior vice-president of itscolour LCD business, which focuses on OEMsin the mobile electronics sector. Previously,he served as CEO and member of the board ofdisplays specialist Densitron Technologies – afirm he joined in London in 1989 as adevelopment engineer. McQuiggan has adegree in electrical and electronicengineering from the University of Bath, UK,and an MBA from Yale University, US.
US
Biolase restructures itsmanagement teamUS dental laser specialist Biolase hasappointed Robert Grant as president andCEO. Grant, who has been serving as chiefoperating officer and interim chief financialofficer since June 2003, has helped managethe company’s successful move to its newmanufacturing facility in San Clemente,
California. Former CEO Jeffrey Jones is nowvice-chairman and chief technology officer.John Hohener, who was previously chieffinancial officer (CFO) at high-densitymemory subsystems manufacturer Netlist,joins Biolase as its CFO.
UK
Pflueger to drive SPIsales in North America
SouthamptonPhotonics (SPI), amanufacturer offibre lasers, hasappointed SilkePflueger as its salesdirector for NorthAmerica. Pfluegerwas product-linemanager forcommercial diodes at
JDS Uniphase before accepting the positionat SPI, having held various engineering andmarketing posts. In her new role she will leadSPI’s sales drive in North America as part ofits worldwide expansion in sales operations.
US/NORTHERN EUROPE
Konarka appoints Waltersto manage growth phase
Eric Walters hasjoined Konarka, adeveloper of flexiblesolar cells with sitesin Germany, Austria,Switzerland and theUS, as vice-presidentand CFO. Walters hasbeen appointed tomanage the firm’sgrowth as Konarka
steps up commercialization of its polymerphotovoltaic products and moves towardsfull production. Previously, Walters was CFOat US medical firm Polymedica, which hehelped transform from a $1 m (€753 000)start-up into a $350 m public company withan $800 m market capitalization. “This is anexciting time to join Konarka, where [its]breakthrough innovations will enable low-cost sources of renewable power,” saidWalters. “My role will be to ensure a steadypath to success.”
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Conferences • Exhibition
spie.org/events/ireland
Pflueger: directing sales.
Walters: guiding role.
Avantes www.avantes.com 46B & M Optik www.bm-optik.de 22BFI Optilas Internationalwww.bfioptilas.avnet.com 7, 33
Breault Research Organizationwww.breault.com IFC
Cambridge Technologywww.camtech.com 48
CLEO/ Europe-EQEC 2005www.cleoeurope.org 40
Cristal Laser www.cristal-laser.fr 41Crystal Systemswww.crystalsystems.com 34
CVI Laser Corporation www.cvilaser.com 4Defense and Security 2005www.spie.org/events/dss 34
EKSPLA www.eksma.com 40ELCAN Optical Technologieswww.elcan.com 14, 32
Electro-Optical Products www.eopc.com 12Engineering Synthesis Designwww.engsynthesis.com 42
ESCO Products www.escoproducts.com 40Fisba Optik www.fisba.com 24FLIR Systems Ltdwww.flirthermography.co.uk 16
Gooch & Housegowww.goochandhousego.com 30
GPD Optoelectronics www.gpd-ir.com 46HC Photonics www.hcphotonics.com 12i-chips Technologywww.i-chipstech.com 10
IMT Masken und Teilungen www.imtag.ch 6Labsphere www.labsphere.com 44Lambda Research Corporationwww.lambdares.com 25
Laser Components (UK)www.lasercomponents.com 43
LIMO Laser Systems www.limo.de 21Mad City Labs www.madcitylabs.com 24Melles Griot www.mellesgriot.com OBCmso jena www.mso-jena.de 51New Focus www.newfocus.com 52Ophir Optronics www.ophiropt.com IBCOptical Research Associateswww.opticalres.com 42
Optikos Corp www.optikos.com 47Optima Researchwww.optima-research.com 20
Opto Ireland 2005www.spie.org/events/ireland 53
Optometrics www.optometrics.com 8, 20
Pacer Components www.pacer.co.uk 20Paul Hößwww.stanfordcomputeroptics.com 50
Photonic Productswww.photonic-products.com 51
Photon Inc www.photon-inc.com 49Physik Instrumente www.pi.ws/olef 13Quantel www.quantel.fr 50Southampton Photonicswww.spioptics.com 26
Sphere Optics www.sphereoptics.com 18Spiricon Laser Beam Diagnosticswww.spiriconpower.com 45
Stanford Research Systemswww.thinkSRS.com 27
StockerYale Canadawww.stockeryale.com 34
StockerYale Ltd (IRL)www.stockeryale.com 8
Thorlabs www.thorlabs.com 49Toptica www.toptica.com 20Torsana Laser Technologieswww.torsanalaser.com 46
Wahl Optopartswww.wahl-optoparts.com 22
XenICS www.xenics.com 24
54 OLE • January 2005 • optics.org
January 16–20 Electonic Imaging 2005 San Jose, California, US SPIE electronicimaging.org/call/05
January 17–18 Directed Energy Weapons London, UK Defence IQ, IDGA www.iqpc.co.uk/GB-2340/diary
January 22–27 Photonics West 2005 San Jose, California, US SPIE spie.org/conferences/calls/05/pw
Jan. 31 – Feb. 4 16th Biennial Congress of the Canberra, Australia AIP www.aipcongress2005.anu.edu.auAustralian Institute of Physics
February 12–17 Medical Imaging 2005 San Diego, California, US SPIE spie.org/conferences/calls/05/mi
Feb. 26 – Mar. 4 Microlithography 2005 San Jose, California, US SPIE spie.org/conferences/calls/05/ml
Feb. 27 – Mar. 4 3rd Optoelectronic and Photonic Trento, Italy University of Trento, www.unitn.it/events/interconnectsWinter School Italy
March 7–9 Optical Engineering I (Training Course) Chislehurst, Kent, UK Sira, UK www.sira.co.uk/courses
March 15–17 10th China International Lasers, Beijing, China CIEC Exhibition www.ilope-expo.comOptoelectronics and Photonics Exhibition Company
March 14–16 Optical Terahertz Science and Orlando, Florida, US OSA www.osa.org/meetings/Technology topicals/otst
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CALENDARFor a more comprehensive list of events, including links to websites, visit optics.org/events
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