Web Exclusives
- WAVEFRONT ANALYSIS: Digital wavefront sensors boost resolution, sensing options
  Analog optical-wavefront sensors are gradually being replaced by fully digital wavefront cameras, which can simultaneously visualize video images and measure wavefronts at a resolution limited only by the camera’s pixel size.
- OPTICS FABRICATION: Molded glass aspheres boost optical-design choices
  Precision glass molding of aspheric lenses allows a wide variety of optical designs with smaller size, reduced weight, and no post-polishing; these lenses can be made economically in medium to high production volumes.
- SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION: The International Physics Olympiad encourages young physics students
  Some of the top high school physics students in the United States were members of the U.S. Physics Team that competed in July at the International Physics Olympiad Competition held in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.
- Photonics products online
  For the latest in new products, see Photonics Products Online on our home page and at www.laserfocusworld.com/exclusives/highlights.html
Columns
- The Editor's Desk
  - Star power comes to Earth
    Though not yet running at full capacity, the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, CA) is now operational.
- In My View
  - 3-D standards: a Tower of Babel
    There’s great potential here for massive consumer bafflement that will make buying a 3-D television more of a horror story than the films you can to see.
Newsbreaks
- Photonic crystal is immune to backscattering
  Normally, if photons can travel in a certain direction through a medium, they can also travel in the reverse direction—a phenomenon called time-reversal symmetry.
- Modelocked femtosecond laser emits at 2420 nm
  A room-temperature, long-wavelength (2 to 3 µm) femtosecond laser would be useful for high-harmonic generation in the deep-UV or soft-x-ray regions, or as a pump source to create even-longer-wavelength IR femtosecond pulses via parametric or Raman conversion.
- Light controls cell movement
  In addition to using light to illuminate and study cellular processes, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have developed a light-activated protein that uses light to actually control cell movement and other intracellular processes.
- Black silicon provides antireflection surface for efficient solar cells
  Black silicon—formed by the irradiation of silicon with an ultrafast laser in a sulfur-based atmosphere, or by various etching processes—is finding applications as varied as IR detection and terahertz emission.
- Fiber laser is both Q-switched and modelocked
  Modelocked lasers produce ultrashort pulses at high frequencies, but generally with low pulse energies (or with ultralong cavity lengths to increase pulse energy).
- VGA OLED microdisplay is picoprojector source
  An all-digital VGA (640 x 480-pixel) resolution full-color organic-light-emitting-diode (OLED) microdisplay is being developed by engineers at Fraunhofer IPMS (Dresden, Germany) for projection applications.
World News
- INTERFEROMETRY: Beam combiner can help find exoplanets
  The search for exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) has taken several forms; a well-known one is the transit method, in which the brightness of a star is monitored to spot any possible instances of a planet crossing in front of the star.
- ULTRAFAST NONLINEAR OPTICS: ‘Time telescope’ squeezes more data into the same duration
  A data-pulse-compression technique that borrows ideas wholesale from classical optics has been shown to vastly increase the data-carrying capacity of telecom-wavelength pulses.
- X-RAY OPTICS: Novel optics improve nuclear-weapon safety
  The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) continues to pursue a smaller, safer, more secure, and less-expensive nuclear-weapons arsenal.
- FIELD-EMISSION LIGHT SOURCES: Handheld far-UV emitter runs on AA batteries
  Flashlights are handy things. With the advent of LEDs based on gallium nitride, near-UV flashlights have recently become available; they are useful for some forensic work, as well as seeing so-called “invisible ink.
- ADAPTIVE OPTICS: Adaptive-optics simulator studies binocular vision
  Adaptive-optics (AO) technology is actively applied in the field of ophthalmology for diagnosis of retinal disease and analysis of ocular aberrations such as coma and spherical aberrations.
- MICROSCOPY: Single-path design simplifies STED microscopy
  In 2008, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Göttingen, Germany) and the German Cancer Research Center (Heidelberg, Germany) developed an isotropic stimulated-emission-depletion (isoSTED) microscopy system capable of performing three-dimensional cell imaging with a resolution of 40 to 45 nm.
- OPTICAL FABRICATION: Simple setup makes HDOEs
  Given the choice between developing a custom optical system or one that can make do with commercial “off-the-shelf” lenses, any designer would choose the latter.
Features
- PHOTONIC FRONTIERS: THE NATIONAL IGNITION FACILITY: NIF is up and running at last
  The National Ignition Facility has yet to reach its full 1.8 MJ UV pulse energy, but it has already begun target experiments.
- PHOTOMULTIPLIERS: Solid-state photon detector has low crosstalk
  A silicon photomultiplier with two forms of crosstalk suppression is a nearly ideal photon detector for industry, nuclear medicine, and research.
- UV OPTICS: New optical developments boost near-UV applications
  Limited choices for substrate/coating materials and processing costs keeps deep-ultraviolet (100–250 nm) applications relatively sparse, but the near-ultraviolet (250–400 nm) region is flourishing, primarily because of the availability of new optical components, coatings, and light sources.
- TUNABLE LASER SOURCES: Fully tunable visible laser source is valuable for biophotonics
  A new laser that is quickly and accurately tunable across 160 nm has advantages over existing visible “ultrachrome” sources used in medical and biological applications.
- FIBER-OPTIC TEST & MEASUREMENT: Gigabit Ethernet drives evolution of multimode fiber-optic specifications
  While single-mode fibers dominated the fiber-optic landscape in the 1990s, multimode fibers have charged back into the limelight, thanks in part to optical measurement standards that ensure their performance for short-distance, high-bitrate data-communication links.
- PHOTONICS APPLIED: TRANSPORTATION: Auto industry is set to reap cost and performance benefits from photonics
  Whether it’s LED headlamps, night-vision safety systems, or emerging laser-ignition systems, the compact, low-energy-consumption performance-rich attributes of photonic technologies ensure their place in the automobiles of the immediate future.
Departments
- Manufacturers' Product Showcase
  - Manufacturers’ Product Showcase
    FEMTO Messtechnik GmbH offers the 200 MHz low-noise transimpedance amplifier DHPCA-100.
- New Products
  - New products
    The MPC-D40x Series of thermoelectric coolers (TECs) incorporates microstructuring technology to produce an electrical resistance of more than 30 Ω on a 1 mm2 footprint.