• Ten fascinating photonics tales from May 2017

    In case you missed them, here are our most interesting business and technical articles on lasers, optics, fiber optics, spectroscopy, imaging, biophotonics, and industrial materials processing.
    May 31, 2017
    2 min read
    Conard 720 5d264a1bba4c7

    In case you missed them, here are our most interesting business and technical articles.

    1. There’s been exciting new work by University of Rochester immunologist Minsoo Kim and colleagues to increase the effectiveness of immune therapy for cancer treatment through the application of light. And find more in a feature story in the May issue.

    2. The SESAME (Synchrotron light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) light source, has been officially opened in Jordan, and will have beamlines that produce x-rays, and visible to terahertz radiation.

    3. Fiber laser industry leader IPG Photonics acquired OptiGrate, whose volume Bragg grating-based components improve performance, miniaturization, and cost reduction of ultrafast lasers for micromachining, medical, and other applications.

    4. Laser revenues for the past few years and our forecasted 6.6% growth in 2017 is based on research compiled in our annual laser market review article, which asks the question, Where have all the lasers gone?

    5. Catch up on efforts by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to restrict green and blue laser pointers, which account for 95% of the 7000+ reported incidents per year in the U.S. where a laser beam is aimed towards an aircraft.

    6. Learn more about the uses of high-power fiber lasers in materials processing in a webcast that introduces the technology and describes how it can be used for generating high-power CW outputs with high beam quality or for amplifying short and ultrashort laser pulses.

    7. At the 4th UKP Workshop on Ultrafast Laser Technology, in Aachen, experts from the academic and industrial ultrafast laser community came together to maybe say goodbye to cold laser ablation.

    8. Microsoft Research and HRL Laboratories say that spherically curved image sensors can be created by three-dimensionally bending off-the-shelf image sensors. When incorporated into prototype cameras, the curved sensors produced improved image quality compared to high-end commercial cameras.

    9. For vehicles, robots, and subsea factories in the challenging ocean environment, understanding the potential of underwater, free-space optical communication requires distinct tradeoffs between range and data rate.

    10. From June 26-29, 2017, LASER World of PHOTONICS, in Munich, will host the largest international gathering of manufacturers and customers of photonics products and technologies--over 1200 exhibitors and 31,000 researchers and professionals. Try not to miss it.

    About the Author

    Conard Holton

    Conard Holton has 25 years of science and technology editing and writing experience. He was formerly a staff member and consultant for government agencies such as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and engineering companies such as Bechtel. He joined Laser Focus World in 1997 as senior editor, becoming editor in chief of WDM Solutions, which he founded in 1999. In 2003 he joined Vision Systems Design as editor in chief, while continuing as contributing editor at Laser Focus World. Conard became editor in chief of Laser Focus World in August 2011, a role in which he served through August 2018. He then served as Editor at Large for Laser Focus World and Co-Chair of the Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar from August 2018 through January 2022. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, with additional studies at the Colorado School of Mines and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

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