Light & Laser News

May 24th, 2006 - Volume 2 Issue 5

Given the potential of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology — for everything from wearable emissive displays to widescreen televisions that can be rolled up when not in use — it’s not surprising the technology is making headlines. Belgian high-tech company Solvay is funding OLED research at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE) to the tune of $3 million. Meanwhile, companies like DuPont and Mitsui Chemicals touted significant lifetime increases for OLED materials at the recent FPD Components & Materials Expo in Tokyo.

[DuPont Link: Follow the link on the left for "View All Releases" and then scroll to April 25 press release entitled "DuPont Announces Breakthrough"]

Silicon Sensor uses the experience of high quality manufacturing and a team of physicists and engineers for the design and manufacture of opto-electronic sensors, including silicon PINs, Avalanche Photodiodes, APD Arrays, and optical position sensors.

World-wide service-based facilities:
• North America - Pacific Silicon Sensor
• International - Silicon Sensor GmbH

Advanced Optics manufactures precision polished and commercial grade optical mirrors made of Pyrex, fused silica, Zerodur, Borofloat, and float glass with a variety of coatings. Surface flatness from a few waves per inch up to 1/20 wave available.

In addition to its in-stock mirrors, Advanced Optics, Inc. offers custom fabrication.

These fiber pigtailed devices can be used — depending on the models — as modulators, fixed frequency shifters, or Q-switches.

Quanta Tech's standard versions are proposed with a single mode fiber with polarization maintaining, however on request, we can offer different types of fibers or connectors.

Shat-R-Shield, Inc. was the first to offer incandescent lamps with protective Teflon® coatings. Coated with DuPont's clear, tough Teflon®, Shat-R-Shield incandescent lamps offer outstanding performance and reliability. The use of Shat-R-Shield incandescents is unlimited. Place them indoors, outdoors, in industrial plants, or anywhere the light fixture exposes the bulb or doesn't offer adequate protection.

Forget about bulky crystals and external cavities, University of Toronto researchers have developed a paint-on infrared laser. The group applied the quantum-dot-doped paint to thin glass tubes and dried it on with a hairdryer. When optically pumped, the material emits coherent light around 1.5 µm. Applications include chip-level optical interconnects.

By starting with a fiber-Bragg-grating fabrication method, researchers have been able to trap the radioactive hydrogen isotope tritium in a method that could someday result in embedded on-chip micro power sources. Using a modified hydrogen-loading technique, the group used a krypton fluoride (KrF) laser operating at 248 nm to lock tritium into 8 µm-thick germanium-doped silicon films.

Your bifocals may soon be a thing of the past if University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center researchers have anything to say about it. Their new “smart” eyeglasses with liquid crystal (LC) diffractive lenses offer variable-focus performance. The lenses consist of a 5 µm layer of liquid crystal sandwiched between two glass layers. Patterned indium-tin oxide electrodes on the glass change the orientation of the LC material, switching with 1.8 V. The IP has already been licensed to Johnson and Johnson for commercialization.

The precision grazing-incidence optics in the XMM Newton and Chandra X-Ray Observatories are allowing scientists to study so-called fossil galaxies, in which all of the stars have been collected into a single, giant galaxy at the center of a dark-matter halo. By combining the x-ray observations with optical and infrared analysis, astronomers discovered the fossil galaxies actually form far more rapidly than previously believed.

Learn more…

Let ACC solve your optical inspection and measurement problems. Whether your existing equipment needs repair/refurbish, or you need new equipment, ACC is your best choice. With over 20 years of optical experience, our technicians have the skills and knowledge necessary to provide you with top quality service and sales.

Highly affordable, ultra-compact, lightweight thermal imager for electrical, mechanical, and building inspections. The InfraCAM™ will clearly make you see small hidden problems, which can not be detected by naked eye but can have severe consequences.

Read more about Flir Systems products.

Power Technology, Inc. introduces its IQµ laser module package. This new microprocessor-controlled module offers control over crucial operating parameters by two methods: an on-board local control with local display, or a Windows-compatible control and monitoring software. Numerous applications can benefit from the controllability and stability of the IQµ. Follow this link for a specialized quote.

Get the best from your marking system, with enabling technology from General Scanning. We're all about performance and value. That’s why OEMs rely on our scanners, servo drivers, and two and three-axis scan heads.

Put our 30 years of applications expertise to work for you and get to market fast.

Totally secure optical communications just came a step closer to reality with the demonstration of high-speed quantum key exchanges at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In the NIST system, a sequence of photons in differing quantum states get passed from sender to receiver, constituting a quantum key that can be used for future encryption. The group produced the raw quantum keys at 4 Mb/s over 1 km of optical fiber with an error rate of 3.6%.

Move over Nd:YAG and excimer lasers — fiber lasers are here. Fiber laser technology is poised to take over the $2 billion industrial laser market, with a compound annual growth rate through 2010 of more than 35%. In contrast, the overall industrial laser market will grow by just 9% during that same period.

Find out more…

Laser-accelerated ion beams traditionally have a tendency to spread and to contain a range of ion velocities. Now, researchers at Queens University are changing all that by bringing in a precision that makes the technique practical for medical and scientific applications. The group first generated the ions by irradiating a thin metal foil with short pulses. It then used a second pulse to isolate small, parallel beams of mono-energetic protons.

Additional details...

[Choose “25/04/2006: Queen's researchers play part in laser breakthrough”]

Light-activated gene therapy can repair cartilage. By inserting genes into cells, doctors can direct cells to divide, making a tissue grow. Researchers have now figured out a practical way to deliver gene therapy. They use fiber-delivered, long-wavelength, UV light to trigger laser pulses at 6000 J/m², which enhances the gene therapy effect in target cells by a factor of 10.

Read more about the technique.

The S9226/S9227 are a new kind of small, easy-to-use, low cost linear image sensors from Hamamatsu.

These low cost devices are ideal for applications such as position detection and low cost spectroscopy.

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) are single-ended fluorescent lamps with smaller diameter tubes that are bent to a compact shape. CFLs come in a variety of wattages, shapes, and sizes to meet your lighting needs. Whatever your application, the bulb specialists at The Specialty Bulb Co., Inc. are waiting to help find the right lamp.

Knowing where you want to go is key to getting there, but thinking about how to get there is just as critical. No working professional can afford to ignore career planning.

Visit the Sloane Career Cornerstone Center for some useful tools. The site is aimed at recent graduates, but the sound advice is something that any professional can use.

A major defense contractor seeks a laser, chemical, or biological laboratory scientist for its Technology and Sensor Sciences section. The section focuses on three main areas: laser spectroscopy, chemistry, and biology including biological and chemical sensing research. You will help set up and execute experiments, and write up the results. The job includes calibration and maintenance of instruments such as a MOPO laser, a FReD argon ion laser, FT-IR or FT-Raman spectrometers, and more. If you have a degree in chemistry, physics, mathematics, plus two to five years of experience, take a look.

When it comes to roadways, today’s crack is tomorrow’s pothole — which is where lasers can help. Researchers at the University of Arkansas and collaborators are using laser imaging techniques in conjunction with a filtered camera to capture images of the roadway surface. The system can capture image data at a rate of 120 MB/s from a truck moving at 60 mph. Look here for details and a video.

First it was fly-by-light, then drive-by-light. Now, it’s play-by-light with the development of optical pickups for the electrical guitar. An infrared beam detects string vibration and renders it electronically. In the past, the placement of the electrical pickups limited the length of the fingerboard. The optical pickup allows the fingerboard to extend to within a few inches of the bridge, for those brain-melting high notes.

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