Optics & Photonics News

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How Much Light Pollution is Out There?

Here's your mission, should you choose to accept it: Look up in the sky after dark and count the stars you see.

4 Oct 2007

Full Car Body Inspection Using Optical 3D Inspection

Laser scanners that enable 3D inspection of car components could shave ten weeks off the time taken to roll out new automotive production lines.

4 Oct 2007

Highly Efficient QCL Could Provide Compact and Portable Source of Mid-Infrared Radiation

A highly efficient quantum cascade laser (QCL) that operates continuous wave (CW) at room temperature could provide a compact, portable and cost-efficient source of mid-infrared radiation, say researchers in the US. Their QCL emits at 4.5 microns, has a wall plug efficiency of over 9.3% and a CW output power of 675mW. Wall plug efficiencies greater than 18% are also reported for devices at a temperature of 150K, with CW output powers of more than 1W.

4 Oct 2007

Flat-Panel Display to Reflect Colors Across Entire Visible Spectrum

A reflective flat-panel display that exhibits color tuning across the entire visible spectrum could be a valuable power saver.

4 Oct 2007

Firing Femtosecond Laser at Bacteria can Reduce Number of Infectious Viruses

Bacterial viruses can be made inactivate by a low-power visible femtosecond pulse, opening up new strategies for controlling micro-organisms.

4 Oct 2007

NuSTAR to Expand Our Understanding of the Origins of Stars and Galaxies

NASA has made a decision to restart an astronomy mission that will have greater capability than any existing instrument for detecting black holes in the local universe.

4 Oct 2007

Hospital in Minneapolis Unveil its Most Expensive Operating Room

It's like a scene from a James Bond movie. In a room with gleaming steel walls, double doors slide open to reveal a doughnut-shaped machine large enough to engulf a person. People start backing away. The machine advances smoothly on ceiling tracks until it starts to swallow the top half of the young woman lying prone on the operating table.

4 Oct 2007

BSGI Can Reliably Detect Sub-Centimeter Lesions

Study results recently published in the Journal of Academic Radiology indicate that Breast-Specific Gamma Imaging (BSGI) provides higher sensitivity for the detection of ductal carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) than mammography or MRI and can reliably detect small, sub-centimeter lesions. The study, performed by Dr. Rachel Brem and colleagues at The George Washington University Medical Center, evaluated the technology on women with mammographically suspicious microcalicifications and other high risk factors.

4 Oct 2007

Improvements in Imaging Over Past Decades Helping Radiologists to Understand Disease Processes

Profound improvements in perfusion and diffusion tensor imaging over the past few decades are changing the ways in which radiologists understand disease processes, especially those involving small blood vessels in the brain.

4 Oct 2007

Molex Completed Acquistion of Fiber Optics Company

Molex Incorporated, a global electronic components company, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Phoenix, Arizona-based Polymicro Technologies, LLC. This acquisition is not financially material to the results of Molex and terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

3 Oct 2007

Market Growth for Telecom and Datacom Lasers will Reach $2.9 Billion in 2012

Sales of telecom and datacom lasers will grow from around $1.0 billion this year to $2.9 billion in 2012, according to a new report just published by CIR, a market research firm based here.

3 Oct 2007

Breakthrough in Electron Microscopy - TEAM Project

The highest-resolution images ever seen in (S)TEM electron microscopy have been recorded using a new instrument developed jointly by U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories, FEI Company and CEOS GmbH, in Heidelberg, Germany.

3 Oct 2007

OIDA formed Community of Interest Group to Focus on Silicon Photonics Activities

The Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA) has formed the Silicon Photonics Alliance (SPA), a Community of Interest (COI) group within OIDA to focus on market and business issues for its members engaged in silicon photonics activities.

3 Oct 2007

19 Individual Mirrors to Function as One Very Sensitive Telescope

Scientists and engineers have created and successfully tested a set of algorithms and software programs which are designed to enable the 19 individual mirrors comprising NASA's powerful James Webb Space Telescope to function as one very sensitive telescope.

3 Oct 2007

PLT can Propel Spacecraft to Unprecedented Speeds Greater than 100 km/sec

The aerospace industry has taken notice of a California researcher who, using off-the-shelf components, built and successfully demonstrated the world's first successful amplified photon thruster.

3 Oct 2007