Photon Focus

Photon Focus

The "Photon Focus" blog is where Laser Focus World editors offer informed opinions and personal commentary on photonics: from lasers and optics to fiber optics, imaging, and software--all applications of light--we've got it covered!

Photonics education; where to begin?

02/15/2012
For the April issue of Laser Focus World, we will feature an article on "Photonics Education" that was envisioned to complement the new education resources that appear on our OptoIQ home page. If you haven't visited OptoIQ late... Read More

CLEO Innovation Award deadline draws near

02/14/2012
If your company has an innovative product or service and will be exhibiting at The Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) in San Jose, May 6-11, then now is the time to enter the Innovation Awards.Again this year, CLEO... Read More

Spectroscopy for everybody else

02/09/2012
I've just come across a tangle of connected websites that have to do with do-it-yourself spectroscopy -- meaning REALLY do-it-yourself, like building your own video spectrometer from a DVD-R (as the grating), a USB webcam, and ... Read More

High-contrast gratings bring new meaning to "integrated" optics

02/06/2012
Gail OvertonSenior EditorLaser Focus Worldgailo@pennwell.comPhotonics West is such a condensed week of awesome photonics technology that it is next to impossible to describe even a fraction of the best presentations and papers.... Read More

And the Oscar winner is--a laser film recorder

02/03/2012
On February 11 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award of Merit will go to ARRI, which makes professional motion picture equipment, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques (IPM). They are ... Read More

Photonics West: SPIE's awesome conference smartphone app

01/22/2012
..John Wallace..Senior Editor..Laser Focus World..johnw@pennwell.comSo I'm here at SPIE's Photonics West 2012 in San Francisco (and will be here until next Thursday), and I'm as overwhelmed as everyone else by the number and ... Read More

Residential solar PV: a happy customer

01/16/2012
Gail OvertonSenior EditorLaser Focus Worldgailo@pennwell.comThere is nothing quite like opening your electric bill for the third month in a row and owing $0 (that’s a zero) dollars. This is the second winter season that ou... Read More

Watching real wavefronts in slow motion

01/12/2012
..John Wallace..Senior Editor..Laser Focus World..johnw@pennwell.comA team at the MIT Media Lab, led by Ramash Raskar, has developed the best way yet to visualize the passage of light as it hits and passes around or through o... Read More

Is the U.S. wired Internet infrastructure weak? Revisited.

12/16/2011
Tom Hausken Optical Networking Research Strategies Unlimited Thausken@PennWell.comIt's time to weigh in on a pet peeve of mine. The topic is the state of high-speed Internet in the U.S., in a December 4 essay in the New York... Read More

The top 10 laser suppliers: some tight races, but a good year for all

12/09/2011
Tom Hausken Optical Networking ResearchStrategies UnlimitedThausken@PennWell.comNow that 2011 is coming to a close we can estimate who are the leading laser suppliers for the year. Once again it looks like Trumpf and Coheren... Read More

Solar farms: the newest crop in the desert southwest

12/06/2011
Gail OvertonSenior EditorLaser Focus Worldgailo@pennwell.comIn the dusty little corner of the planet--the lower Mojave desert--that I call home, it's time to start raiding the just-picked lettuce and broccoli fields for the abu... Read More

Uh oh, that fly has a wafer-scale camera

11/23/2011
..John Wallace..Senior Editor..Laser Focus World..johnw@pennwell.comPredictions for the future of humanity range from an expansion of the human race throughout the universe to a quick self-extinction based on nuclear war or b... Read More

Lasers can make brown eyes blue--but should they?

11/14/2011
Gail OvertonSenior EditorLaser Focus Worldgailo@pennwell.comThe daily news posting at http://www.laserfocusworld.com/ entitled "Laser turns brown eyes blue" generated much discussion on LinkedIn. The comments weren't centered a... Read More

Metamaterials and media hype

10/27/2011
..John Wallace..Senior Editor..Laser Focus World..johnw@pennwell.comOptical metamaterials are truly revolutionary: their properties (for example, a printable negative-index material) are like no other, and their nanoscale str... Read More

Look who’s 50 in 2011: Nonlinear optics and Spectra-Physics

10/24/2011
Gail OvertonSenior EditorLaser Focus Worldgailo@pennwell.comAh, who can forget the 2010 50th anniversary celebration of the laser? Our normally docile and academic-minded photonics industry was jumping in 2010, with jubilant ce... Read More

Ball camera takes spherical panoramas

10/20/2011
John WallaceSenior EditorLaser Focus Worldjohnw@pennwell.comThe commoditization of high-tech builds on itself. For example, CMOS imagers are used in digital cameras, become cheaper to manufacture, and are used in cell phones an... Read More

Smartphones become photonics hardware

10/14/2011
John Wallace Senior EditorLaser Focus Worldjohnw@pennwell.comAs Laser Focus World readers know, the use of the iPhone in photonics is growing. Examples include the iPhone as a source of info (geometrical optics guide; colori... Read More

FiO 2011 not-to-be-missed highlights

10/11/2011
  Gail Overton  Senior Editor  Laser Focus World  gailo@pennwell.comIf you're able to attend the 2011 Frontiers in Optics conference (FiO 2011; www.frontiersinoptics.com)--the OSA's 95th Annual Meeting that ... Read More

The science and art of optical contacting

10/06/2011
  John Wallace  Senior Editor  Laser Focus World  johnw@pennwell.comFirst, the science (I'll go through this quickly, because I want to get to the art). Optical contacting is a method of adhering two pieces ... Read More

NASA technology enters new frontiers

10/04/2011
  Gail Overton  Senior Editor  Laser Focus World  gailo@pennwell.comBack in early August, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; Washington, DC) announced its "Can you see it now?" campaign... Read More

LME--laser makers meet industrial customers

09/29/2011
  Conard Holton  Associate Publisher, Editor in Chief  Laser Focus World  cholton@pennwell.comThe new Lasers for Manufacturing Event, organized by the Laser Institute of America (LIA) and held September 27-2... Read More

In unusual optics, don’t discount the sphere

09/21/2011
John Wallace Senior EditorLaser Focus World johnw@pennwell.comWhen it comes to simple, imaginative approaches to optical design, the spherical mirror has not been left out. Or at least that's what I found when I came across... Read More

Origami and photonics fold together

09/19/2011
Gail OvertonSenior EditorLaser Focus Worldgailo@pennwell.comDid you know that an origami-based folding solar panel designed by Japanese astrophysicist Koryo Miura actually flew on a Japanese satellite in the 1980s and is the in... Read More

Does LED lighting at night have bad effects?

09/14/2011
  John Wallace  Senior Editor  Laser Focus World  johnw@pennwell.comScientists have been talking for many years about how artificial lighting can cause poor sleep. To that, you might say, "So shut the lights... Read More

Downhole photonics

09/09/2011
  Gail Overton   Senior Editor   Laser Focus World   gailo@pennwell.comI was reading an article this week in the July 2011 issue of Physics Today on natural gas fracking called "Shale-gas extraction faces gr... Read More

Prize for laser innovation

09/09/2011
Conard HoltonAssociate Publisher, Editor in ChiefLaser Focus Worldcholton@pennwell.comThe Berthold Leibinger Innovation Prize honors scientists and developers who make advancements in the field of applied laser technology. The ... Read More

Rescuing the James Webb Space Telescope

08/31/2011
John Wallace Senior Editor Laser Focus World johnw@pennwell.com The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a cosmological probe every bit as revolutionary as the Hubble Space Telescope was (after its fix) -- and the JWST... Read More

Plenaries aplenty at SPIE O + P San Diego

08/29/2011
Gail Overton Senior Editor Laser Focus World gailo@pennwell.com With a total of 25 plenary sessions, SPIE Optics + Photonics could quite possibly be the most plenary intensive conference in the photonics industry today. Be... Read More

An annual meeting plus

08/26/2011
Conard Holton Associate Publisher, Editor in Chief Laser Focus World cholton@pennwell.com SPIE Optics + Photonics, the society's annual meeting in San Diego (August 21-25), drew an enthusiastic crowd of nearly 5000 attendees ... Read More

Nuclear fuel may get cheaper to make

08/24/2011
John Wallace Senior Editor Laser Focus World johnw@pennwell.com In a remarkable development, General Electric has licensed a laser-enrichment technology developed by an Australian company called Silex, and has been successful... Read More