Optics and Photonics News

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Most Advanced and Powerful Electron Microscope Installed at McMaster University

The most advanced and powerful electron microscope on the planet-capable of unprecedented resolution-has been installed in the new Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy at McMaster University.

20 Oct 2008

Optical Microcavity Resonance Technique for Detecting Unlabelled Target Molecules

Even very small numbers of deadly infectious agents or allergenic pollen molecules can cause big problems for humans. But detecting such trace amounts is difficult to do fast enough to do any good. Current techniques -- for example, air sampling on filters or slides until enough molecules for a detectible signal or preparing specially tagged molecules for lab experiments -- are more suitable for general research than alerting people to an imminent threat.

20 Oct 2008

Tabletop Microscope Recognized as Top 100 Most Significant Technological Advances for 2008

R+D Magazine has recognized a tabletop microscope developed by a team of Colorado State University and Berkeley researchers at the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Science and Technology as one of the Top 100 most significant technological advances for 2008.

20 Oct 2008

Revolutionary Non-Contact Optical Depth Sensing Technique Delivers Accurate Height Measurements

Prior to this new advancement any testing would require mechanical surface contact, which was impossible during sample movement, to take in account substrate and machine compliance. Now with the ability to observe the precise depth of the indenter without touch, sample motion is no longer an issue and true depth of the indenter can be directly recorded.

20 Oct 2008

New Catalog from PI Focuses on Specimen Positioning Devices and Microscope Lenses

Nanopositioning specialist PI has released a new catalog entitled "Tools for Microscopy and Imaging", available for download in PDF format.

17 Oct 2008

Fermi Telescope Discovers Gamma-Ray-Only Pulsar

About three times a second, a 10,000-year-old stellar corpse sweeps a beam of gamma-rays toward Earth. Discovered by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the object, called a pulsar, is the first one known that only "blinks" in gamma rays.

16 Oct 2008

Transformation Optics Promises Radical Advances in Optical Technologies

A new research field called transformation optics may usher in a host of radical advances including a cloak of invisibility and ultra-powerful microscopes and computers by harnessing nanotechnology and "metamaterials."

16 Oct 2008

Reliable Detection of Tuberculosis using New Microscope from Carl Zeiss

With the Primo Star iLED, Carl Zeiss is introducing a new fluorescence microscope which enables the fast and reliable detection of tuberculosis. Together with FIND, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, which co-developed the microscope, the optics company will be presenting the system at the 39th World Union Conference on Lung Health in Paris from 17 to 20 October 2008.

16 Oct 2008

PPG Industries Appoints Augen Optics as Distributor of NXT Rx Performance Sunlenses

Intercast Europe, S.r.l, a business of PPG Industries, has appointed Augen Optics as an authorized distributor of NXT Rx performance sunlenses.

15 Oct 2008

Researchers to Develop Solid-State Laser Design Based on Synthetic Diamond

Researchers at the Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde, have started work on a 3.5 year project to develop a novel solid-state laser design incorporating CVD (chemical vapour deposition) diamond manufactured by Element Six Ltd. Element Six leads the world in the field of CVD diamond synthesis and its application.

14 Oct 2008