Laser Focus World articles from June 2002

Laser Focus World archives from June 2002

Innovation ignores economics. (editor's desk).
June 1, 2002... The telecommunications "bubble" brought with it a tidal wave of change to the world of optoelectronics. In just a year or two (or so it seems now), our industry evolved from relative obscurity to one that was routinely front-page news from...

Diamond deposition article sparks heated debate. (Letters).
June 1, 2002... With regard to the cover story, "Depositing Diamond in Open Air" (March, p. 15), there's only one problem. All of this work, and much more, was accomplished between 1986 and 1991 at McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) in St. Louis, MO, and the...

Research did not demonstrate attosecond duration. (Letters).
June 1, 2002... The Krausz work discussed in your article, "Optical pulses reach attosecond length" (February, p. 17) was presented very deceptively. The title of the paper in Nature is "Attosecond metrology," implying that the group had actually measured an...

Microgear laser contains wraparound Bragg grating. (news breaks).
June 1, 2002... A photopumped microgear laser developed by researchers at Yokohama National University (Yokohama, Japan) takes its form because it is the combination of a microdisk and a rotationally symmetric Bragg grating. In one version, the microgear laser...

Largest ring laser is in operation. (news breaks).
June 1, 2002... The University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand) is a leading center for the development of large ring lasers, which are used to measure the Earth's rotation rate. The measurement accuracy of these lasers rises in proportion to the...

Superlattices and blocking barrier create multicolor infrared detector. (news breaks).
June 1, 2002... By stacking two superlattices (SLs) and separating them with a blocking barrier, researchers at National Taiwan University (Taipei, Taiwan) and National Chiao Tung University (Hsinchu, Taiwan) have created a multicolor infrared detector that...

Nanometer-thickness layers tailor thin-film refractive index. (news breaks).
June 1, 2002... Thin-film optical coatings with tailorable refractive index add great flexibility to coating design but are difficult to fabricate. One way to make such coatings is to stack nanometer-thickness alternating layers of two materials with different...

Sandwiched dispersion-managed fiber reduces Raman noise. (news breaks).
June 1, 2002... A dispersion-managed fiber (DMF) consists of a segment of positive-dispersion (+D) fiber combined with a segment of negative-dispersion (-D) fiber so that overall dispersion is largely canceled. Because -D fiber has a small effective area, it...

Birefringence is key to phase-shifting scatterplate interferometer. (news breaks).
June 1, 2002... Common-path interferometers, which reduce effects of vibration and air turbulence by passing the reference and measurement beams down the same path, are more difficult to outfit with phase-shifting apparatus than the common Fizeau and...

Double acousto-optics narrow bandwidth of FSF laser. (news breaks).
June 1, 2002... The development of solid-state frequency-shifted feedback (FSF) tunable lasers has improved tuning range and tuning speed, but has not narrowed emission lines to enable practical application. The broad spectrum of an FSF laser results from the...

OCT resolves tadpole eye to 1 [micro]m in 3-D. (news breaks).
June 1, 2002... Optical coherence tomography (OCT), a three-dimensional (3-D) imaging technique with particular use in biological tissue studies, has conventionally been limited in resolution. Researchers at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique...

FEL oscillator works at 190 nm. (news breaks).
June 1, 2002... Free-electron lasers (FELs) can be operated in two different cavity configurations: self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE; no mirrors, one pass straight through), or the traditional laser oscillator (a cavity with mirrors). An FEL...

Petawatt laser inaugurated in the U.K. (High-Energy Physics).
June 1, 2002... A recent major upgrade to the neodymium:glass "Vulcan" laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL; Oxon, England) has increased the power it can deliver by a factor of ten. It is claimed that the laser now produces a higher focused...

Cocktails produce inner glow. (optoelectronics world news).
June 1, 2002... There's nothing like a cold drink in hand to take one's mind off weighty subjects like optoelectronics. Watching the sunset from the back porch with a tumblerful of refreshment can calm even the most harried researcher--but that feeling of...

Laser-based breath analyzer diagnoses asthma, schizophrenia. (Medical Diagnostics).
June 1, 2002... Researchers at the University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK) have developed a diagnostic system that uses tunable diode-laser absorption spectroscopy to noninvasively detect and monitor diseases by quantifying molecular biomarkers in breath samples....

Military program develops novel UV sources. (Ultraviolet Lasers).
June 1, 2002... A research program at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA; Arlington, VA) aims to create novel semiconductor ultraviolet optical sources (SUVOS) for use in biological-agent detection and a many other military applications. (1)...

Light creates mask for 3-D atom lithography. (Holography).
June 1, 2002... In optical lithography, photons of shorter and shorter wavelengths are being used to achieve ever-finer patterning of semiconductor integrated circuits, with wavelengths reaching to the extreme-ultraviolet and even x-ray spectral regions. Using...

Theorists aim for zeptosecond `lighthouse'. (Ultrafast Laser Physics).
June 1, 2002... Usually a lighthouse has a very narrow beam of rotating lights; the narrower the beam, the higher the energy within it and the narrower the flash time compared to the entire cycle of the beacon. The lighthouse that Alexander Kaplan of Johns...

Tungsten lattice turns excess heat into light. (Photonic Crystals).
June 1, 2002... An experiment using a three-dimensional (3-D) tungsten photonic crystal may enable ultra-efficient light bulbs that can turn excess heat into light, Jim Fleming and Shawn Lin at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, NM) have reported...

Laser-based instruments abound at Pittcon 2002. (Conference Review).
June 1, 2002... In keeping with the downward dip seen at many trade shows this year, Pittcon 2002 (March 17-22; New Orleans, LA) appeared quieter than at any time in the past decade. The event remains, however, a top focus for makers and users of analytical...

Ruby laser captures munitions impacts. (Solid-State Lasers).
June 1, 2002... A high-energy, multiple-pulse Q-switched ruby laser has been developed by the U.S. Air Force to be used in high-speed photography and holographic movies. High-speed photography has many important applications, including ballistics, material...

Coiled fiber amplifier delivers high-power signal. (Fiber Amplifiers).
June 1, 2002... Single-mode, rare-earth-doped fiber lasers and amplifiers are widely used in optical telecommunications and other applications requiring compact, rugged, efficient light sources with diffraction-limited beam quality. Use of these sources for...

Deep-ultraviolet sources use simple lasers. (Photolithography).
June 1, 2002... Deep-ultraviolet light sources for photolithography fall into two categories: those intended for exposure illumination and other high-power applications, and those used in measurement tools. For exposing photoresist, excimer lasers--with their...

Ion injection simplifies GaN laser manufacture. (Japan watch).
June 1, 2002... TOKYO--Engineers at Sanyo Denki have developed a low-cost, low-noise gallium nitride (GaN)-based blue-violet-emitting semiconductor laser that has a new structure (see figure). This type of laser is important in the development of...

Optical mouse knows its place. (Digital Signal Processing).
June 1, 2002... MIZONKUCHI--Agilent Technologies has developed an optical-mouse position sensor with twice the resolution and 1.5 times the frame rate of conventional devices. The device enables smooth, high-sensitivity control of the cursor. The sensor is...

Echelle grating discerns communications spectra. (Spectroscopy).
June 1, 2002... TOKYO--A miniature spectroscope using an echelle grating has been developed at Nikon Corp. for optical communications applications. The device incorporates both the company's well-known optical design technologies and microfabrication...

Rockwell Scientific gets eye-protection contract. (laser industry report).
June 1, 2002... Rockwell Scientific (Thousand Oaks, CA) has been awarded a $2.8 million, 12-month contract from the U.S. Air Force to develop technologies and manufacturing processes to produce laser protective eyewear for aircrews. The eyewear resulting from...

Coherent solid-state lasers go to the movies. (laser industry report).
June 1, 2002... Compass 315M and Sapphire 460-10 solid-state lasers from Coherent (Santa Clara, CA) are at the heart of the Oscar award-winning Arrilaser. Developed by Arnold & Richter Cinetechnik (ARRI; Munich, Germany) and the Fraunhofer Institute of...

Sandia launches solid-state lighting website. (laser industry report).
June 1, 2002... The Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, NM) has launched a new website (lighting.sandia.gov) that will offer comprehensive information on semiconductor light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for solid-state lighting. The...

Livermore scientists completes 28-km communication link. (laser industry report).
June 1, 2002... Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL; Livermore, CA) have successfully completed a 28-km high-capacity laser communication link between the Laboratory and Mount Diablo. "This represents one of the longest terrestrial...

Thales Laser. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... Thales Laser (Orsay, France) is actively looking for distributors and agents worldwide....

The Laser Institute of America. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... The Laser Institute of America (Orlando, FL) has announced that the first exams for its Certified Laser Safety Officer Program will be held in two locations on Sunday, Oct. 13. The locations are Scottsdale, AZ, and Orlando, FL. Details can be...

OIDA to explore issues in photonics manufacturing. (optics industry report).
June 1, 2002... The Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA; Washington, DC) will turn its attention to design, automation, packaging, and standardization issues in photonics manufacturing at its next workshop, to be held at the Boston...

Neophotonics joins Ardesta company family. (optics industry report).
June 1, 2002... Ardesta (Ann Arbor, MI) and NanoGram (Fremont, CA) have entered a strategic relationship that will allow NanoGram to accelerate commercialization of nanomaterials in medical, energy storage, and other markets. As part of this broad...

Cox Communications tests TeraBurst switch. (optics industry report).
June 1, 2002... TeraBurst Networks (Sunnyvale, CA) has announced that Cox Communications (Atlanta, GA) has successfully completed testing of the TeraBurst OMS 2200 optical switch. The test cleared the way for deployment of TeraBurst's optical switches by the...

Lightconnect secures distribution partnerships. (optics industry report).
June 1, 2002... Lightconnect (Newark, CA) has secured distributor relationships for European and Chinese markets. The company will be represented by Laser 2000 throughout the major European markets, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, the...

KMI. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... A recent report by KMI (Providence, RI), "Fixed and Variable Fiberoptic Attenuators: A Worldwide Market Assessment," forecasts that the worldwide attenuator market will grow from $101 million in 2001 to nearly $600 million in 2006. During this...

Iolon. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... Iolon (San Jose, CA) has announced the closing of an additional $7.6 million of Series C funding, bringing the company's total funding to date to over $85 million....

OMM. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... OMM (San Diego, CA) has announced that Lumentis (Stockholm, Sweden) has incorporated OMM's products into the optical crossconnect (OXC) functionality of their Mentis 3000 Metro system....

Sabeus Photonics. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... Sabeus Photonics (Chatsworth, CA) has announced the second closing of its latest funding round, bringing the total investment in this round to just over $21 million....

Newport. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... Sales from continuous operations at Newport (Irvine, CA) for its first quarter ended March 31 totaled $43.9 million, compared to $44.3 million in the previous quarter and $99.1 million in the same period one year ago.

Dalsa and Photonfocus collaborate on CMOS sensor. (imaging & detector industry report).
June 1, 2002... Dalsa (Waterloo, Ont., Canada) and Photonfocus (Lachen, Switzerland) announced that the companies have entered into a cooperative agreement for worldwide commercialization of the Linlog wide-dynamic-range CMOS image-sensor technology in cameras...

Vector Technology wins KCRC Rail extension. (imaging & detector industry report).
June 1, 2002... Vector Technology (Abertillery, South Wales) has won a 360,000 [pounds sterling] (US$523,000) contract for the KCRC West Rail extension in Hong Kong. The exclusive two-year contract with Siemens (Erlangen, Germany), the prime contractor, means...

Datacube and MVTec collaborate on OEM machine vision. (imaging & detector industry report).
June 1, 2002... Datacube (Danvers, MA) has entered an agreement with MVTec Software (Munich, Germany) to bundle the Datacube Halcon 6.1 machine-vision software tools with MVTec MaxRevolution and MaxPCI family of framegrabbers and image processors. "We see the...

Atmospheric Infrared Sounder launched last month. (imaging & detector industry report).
June 1, 2002... The BAE Systems (Nashua, NH) Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), built by the IR Imaging Systems (IRIS) business in Lexington, MA, was successfully launched on May 4 onboard NASA's Aqua Spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. AIRS is...

DRS Technologies (Parsippany, NJ) has received a contract to design and manufacture sonar display consoles for the Sonar 2193 Project of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... DRS Technologies (Parsippany, NJ) has received a contract to design and manufacture sonar display consoles for the Sonar 2193 Project of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. The award, valued in excess of $1 million, was received from Thales...

Micron Technology. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... Micron Technology (Boise, Idaho) is sampling CMOS image-sensor camera system-on-a-chip devices and stand-alone CMOS image sensors designed specifically to meet the demands of low-power mobile devices such as cell phones, smart phones, and PDAs....

Electronicast sees signs of recovery. (fiberoptics industry report).
June 1, 2002... Signs of a modest recovery in the consumption rate of fiberoptic communication components have begun to appear, according to comments by Jeff Montgomery, chairman and founder of Electronicast (San Mateo, CA) during the annual Electronicast...

RHK says recovery will be slow. (fiberoptics industry report).
June 1, 2002... Wireline service-provider capital expenditure in North America will decline from $77 billion in 2001 to $46 to $51 billion in 2002, according to a new report from RHK (South San Francisco, CA) entitled, "North American Telecom is in for a Slow...

Lockheed Martin selects Tellium for optical switching. (fiberoptics industry report).
June 1, 2002... Tellium (Oceanport, NJ) has announced a multiyear, multimillion dollar agreement with Lockheed Martin Corp. (Bethesda, MD), in which Lockheed Martin has agreed to purchase Tellium's Aurora and StarNet products in support of a U.S. government...

Lucent to provide Verizon with DWDM optical equipment. (fiberoptics industry report).
June 1, 2002... Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) announced a three-year agreement with Verizon (New York, NY) to expand the capacity of Verizon's regional interoffice core network throughout the United States. Verizon has named Lucent its exclusive...

Alcatel Optronics. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... Alcatel Optronics (Paris, France), reported first-quarter results with sales down by 77.5% to 35.1 million (US$31.9 million) over the same period last year. Loss from operations was registered at 43.0 million (US$39.1 million). On a sequential...

Multilink Technology. (Also in the news ...).
June 1, 2002... Alcatel has also formed a partnership with Multilink Technology (Somerset, NJ) to jointly develop next-generation transceivers....

Tellium. (Also in the news ...
June 1, 2002... Tellium (Oceanport, NJ) reported revenues for the first quarter ended March 31 of $54.1 million, compared with $15.6 million for the same period last year, or an increase of $38.5 million.

Should I help two of my students start businesses? (business forum).
June 1, 2002... Q: Two of my students want me to help them in their businesses. Should I pick one? If I help both, how do I handle potential conflicts? A: Assuming you will act honorably, my recommendation is to help both. Why should you have to take sides...

Proposed royalty provision for ATP draws criticism from research community. (washington report).
June 1, 2002... A year after announcing that it would seek to reform the controversial Advanced Technology Program, the Bush administration recently announced six proposed changes that, administration officials say, would make ATP more faithful to its original...

Performance monitoring saves time and money. (software & computing).
June 1, 2002... Modern source monitoring of the laser beam is a valuable tool when characterizing and verifying industrial laser performance. It is a quantitative method, it saves time when tuning and adjusting the laser for specific applications, it can...

Passive obstacle detection expected to save lives. (Digital Cameras).
June 1, 2002... Military aircraft, which may be manned or unmanned and fixed or rotary wing, routinely fly at altitudes below 1000 ft in support of their missions. Flying at these low altitudes presents a safety hazard to the aircrew and aircraft due to the...

QC lasers may provide terahertz bandwidth for communications; with picosecond-scale electron lifetimes, quantum-cascade lasers may reach terahertz modulation speeds; near-infrared versions would be useful for fiberoptic communications. (Quantum-Cascade Lasers).
June 1, 2002... The demonstration of the quantum-cascade (QC) laser by Federico Capasso and his group at Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) has opened up a challenging area for device physics and engineering. (1) A particularly tantalizing possibility is...

Taking the measure of light: a new Back to Basics series on test and measurement starts this month with a discussion of the basic physical principles that underlie today's complex instruments for the measurement of optical power and energy. (Back to basics: test and measurement).
June 1, 2002... In the early history of the laser, a common method of measuring peak power was to count the number of razor blades through which a pulse could burn. These units were called "Gillettes" and they serve to illustrate how measuring the brightness...

Waveguide amplifiers compensate passive optical component losses. (Integrated Optics).
June 1, 2002... The widespread deployment of dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) systems was facilitated by the development of high-power erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). As DWDM systems extend into the metro area, EDFAs will also be used in...

Figure of merit characterizes electronic imager performance. (CMOS Detectors).
June 1, 2002... Electronic imaging has become popular in recent years, and this trend will accelerate in the future as electronic camera quality improves while the price falls. Today some digital cameras made with electronic imagers produce quality images that...

Packet switching takes steps toward optical; formidable difficulties surround the application of all-optical switches to packet switching. Success, though, would mean faster Internet data transmission. (Optical networking: optical packet switching).
June 1, 2002... Today's all-optical switches are fundamentally mismatched with the needs of the fastest-growing sector of telecommunications--the Internet. The current generation of optical switches are circuit switches, which make optical connections between...

NASA lidar uses HOEs for lightweight scanning. (Holographic Optics).
June 1, 2002... When incorporated into future spaceborne platforms, light-detection-and-ranging (lidar) remote-sensing instruments will measure atmospheric and surface parameters that include topographic altimetry and atmospheric profiles of wind, humidity,...

Optical-layer monitoring safeguards fiberoptic networks. (Optical Performance Monitoring).
June 1, 2002... The increasing use of the Internet, with the transmission of text, still image, and movie data, increases the demand for bandwidth in transmission networks. Global fiberoptic communication networks handle the majority of this traffic, but...

Collaboration and competition breed industrial-laser success; government investment and education have paved the way for Western Europe's dominance in materials-processing technology, applications, and usage. (European Report).
June 1, 2002... With a strong machine-tool and manufacturing history, it is no wonder that the European Union has become a major player in the laser materials-processing market. In fact, for more than a decade, the European Union has been not only a competitor...

Free-space communications struggles to find its niche; free-space optical communications has found a small market in interbuilding links. But to penetrate other areas, tough technical problems must be overcome. (Focus on: communications).
June 1, 2002... The vast majority of today's optical communications runs through fibers, while the vast majority of free-space wireless communications is transmitted at radio wavelengths. Producers of free-space optical communications have had an uphill battle...

Plate polarizers. (new products).
June 1, 2002... High-damage-threshold plate polarizers combine both high extinction ratio and broad spectral bandwidth. Produced at any wavelength in the 266-to 1550-nm range, they offer a damage threshold of at least 20 J/[cm.sup.2] damage (10-ns pulse). They...

All-optical switch. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The Free-X 2 x 2 all-optical switch is available in a fast or ultrafast version with integrated VOA and multicast capabilities. Designed for next-generation optical networks, the uses Solid Free Space (SFS) technology, based on free-space...

Miniature spectral measuring systems. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The Specbos instrument series is designed to measure the spectral characteristics and color coordinates of transmissive and reflective targets and the light levels of primary sources. The spectral diffuser has an optical resolution of 9 nm....

Industrial 266-nm laser. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The new HIPPO 266 (high-intensity peak-power oscillator) laser delivers >2 W of Q-switched output at 266 nm, with a repetition rate of 40 kHz. The laser combines short pulsewidth ( Spectra-Physics, Mountain View, CA Circle 203 or go to...

One-part adhesive. (new products).
June 1, 2002... Tra-Bond LX10085 is a one-part, solvent-free adhesive that sets in seconds when exposed to UV light. The adhesive has good clarity, low shrinkage, and a light flexibility making it suitable for optical bonding. It was designed to meet Federal...

UV light source. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The BraggStar Industrial-LN is a new UV light source with a temporal coherence length of ~5 mm. This product utilizes economical excimer-laser technology for the interferometric FBG writing process. Features include Corona preionization, a...

Laser safety eyewear. (new products).
June 1, 2002... A new line of UVEX LSK-series laser safety eyewear offers a wraparound modern look equivalent to name-brand sunglasses. Features include adjustable earpieces, rounded nose support, side eye protection, and standard antifog and antiscratch...

Erbium-doped fibers. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The FS-ER-7A28 erbium-doped fiber is designed for use in the C-band and the FS-ER-7B28 is designed for L-band applications. Intended for use in both EDFAs and ASE sources, the fibers utilize 3M's proprietary core composition and co-dopant...

Fiber-stripping technology. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The AutoPrep unit is a benchtop automated fiber-preparation unit that strips, cleans, and cleaves optical fibers with 250- to 900-[micro]m coatings with a 9-s cycle time. It uses a patented "burst technology" that directs a single high-velocity...

All-parameter analyzer. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The Agilent 81910A photonic all-parameter analyzer addresses both loss and dispersion measurement of optical components. The unit consists of a tunable laser source and interferometer. The analyzer measures insertion loss, PDL, group delay, and...

Purged spectroscopy for 120 nm. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The new SpectraPro 300i purged monochromator/spectrograph offers users spectral operation as low as 120 nm. The standard configuration provides a proprietary purged venting design that eliminates entry of stray light. Optional venting...

Digital imaging system. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The IMACON 200 is a new high-speed imaging system that offers simultaneous framing and streak-recording options for ultrafast transient events. The system incorporates a patented multichannel beamsplitter and novel retriggerable CCD chip. Up to...

2-D laser scanner. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The LS-1M100 is a 2-D laser-scanner system consisting of a specialized laser rotary-motor encoder and dedicated controller. The system controls medium-and high-inertia mirrors in applications requiring laser marking and laser processing, such...

Light-diffusion filters. (new products).
June 1, 2002... Clarex DR-IIIC light-diffusion filters are designed to diffuse backlighting and enhance display brightness without changing the internal light source. Cast in lightweight, impact-resistant acrylic, the filters are available in thicknesses of...

40-W FAP diode laser. (new products).
June 1, 2002... A new line of high-power, 40-W fiber-array packaged (FAP) bars in the 780- to 815-nm range has been introduced. The lasers are designed for direct-diode thermal applications in the medical and materials-processing industries and as a pump...

Microlens arrays. (new products).
June 1, 2002... Replicated microlens arrays (MLAs) are embossed onto a thin film of UV-curable epoxy resin on a standard glass plate or components supplied by the customer, such as prisms or lenses. Array sizes up to 120 x 120 mm are available with thickness...

Polarization-scrambler module. (new products).
June 1, 2002... The PCD-003 series polarization-scrambler module uses all-fiber technology to randomize polarization states. The module is intended for OEMs to integrate into fiberoptic-network modules and test equipment. The all-fiber construction reduces...