ISO 9001 coatings: Deposition Sciences (DSI; Santa Rosa, CA), manufacturer of thin-film optical coatings, was awarded an ISO 9001:2000 Management System Certification from SRI Quality System Registrar (Pittsburgh, PA). Companies that achieve management system certification to ISO 9001:2000 have demonstrated effective implementation of documentation and records management, top management’s commitment to their customers, establishment of clear policy, good planning and implementation, good resource management, efficient process control, measurement and analysis. DSI specializes in thin-film optical coating design and services for both commercial and military sectors.
Ethernet configuration tool: Communications components supplier Aspen Optics (Hong Kong, China) is launching a configuration tool for system integrators and Internet service providers to generate solutions for fiber network connection. The tool, known as “Aspen Optical Ethernet Configurator” is on www.aspenoptics.com and is open to public usage. Users only need to choose the switch models they wish to connect and the distance between them. The configuration engine will automatically recommend the best options to connect based on customer input in a multiple-vendor environment. For every situation, the tool will fully consider the specifications of that piece of hardware, compatibility, interoperability, transmission mode, and connection distance.
Aesthetic laser growth: Cynosure (Westford, MA), developer and manufacturer of light-based aesthetic treatment systems, announced that for the second quarter and six months ended June 30, 2008, revenues increased approximately 30% to $39.2 million from $30.1 million in the second quarter of 2007. “Cynosure delivered outstanding results, posting record revenue along with our seventh consecutive quarter of profitability as well as our sixth consecutive quarter of positive operating cash flow,” said president and CEO Michael Davin. “The advantages of our light-based aesthetic products continue to resonate with the market. Laser product revenue increased 32% in the second quarter of 2008 over the same period of 2007, reflecting the demand for our multi-energy workstations targeted towards high-volume aesthetic applications such as hair removal, anti-aging and laser bodysculpting.”
Web search service: The online optics news site optics.org is launching a new web search service for the optics and photonics community. Called search.optics.org, the site is a search tool that will allow you to focus your search on only those areas that interest you. It has been engineered to return results from websites that have been personally selected for their relevant optics content, allowing you to find what you’re looking for more quickly than ever before. Although search.optics.org is still being developed, the beta version can be accessed at herald.iop.org/search.optics.org/m12/sxw//link/1839.
Satellite imaging: e2v (Chelmsford, England), designer, developer, and manufacturer of specialized imaging components and subsystems, was selected by Thales Alenia Space to provide the high-performance CCD image sensors to be used in the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel-3 Earth observation satellite. Sentinel-3 is part of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) initiative to deliver environmental and security services in Europe. The CCD55–20 is an updated version of the CCD25–20, which was supplied to ESA for the MERIS instrument, the predecessor of Sentinel-3. It is a high-performance, back-illuminated frame-transfer CCD image sensor optimized for hyperspectral imaging.
Motion-control subsidiary in Japan: Precision motion-control products and systems manufacturer Aerotech (Pittsburgh, PA) opened its Aerotech KK subsidiary in Tokyo, Japan. Under the leadership of managing director Tadashi Imai, the new full-service subsidiary will provide application engineering, sales, and customer service for Japan as well as support for customers and sales channel partners in the greater region, joining Aerotech’s other subsidiaries in the U.K. and Germany. Aerotech’s products are used in semiconductor, photovoltaics, display, MEMS, nanotechnology, military/aerospace, R&D, imaging, laser processing, medical, automotive, machine tool, packaging, print, textile, electronic manufacturing, test and inspection, and metrology applications.
NASA optics supplier: Optimax (Ontario, NY) has been supplying precision optics for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Washington, DC) for such NASA programs as the Mars Rovers, the Mercury MESSENGER, New Horizons mission to Pluto, the LOLA (Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter) on the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), and the OCO (Orbiting Carbon Observatory) which are equipped with high-quality imaging lenses designed for position sensing, mapping landforms, and optical analysis. After nearly $2 million of capital investment and a 2.5X asphere department workforce increase, Optimax is offering aspheres with quicker standard lead times and supporting its value proposition of Optics in 1 Week!
NASA detector supplier: Photek (St. Leonards on Sea, England) is celebrating its 11th Anniversary with Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), the mission managed by NASA that measures and compares the composition of several samples of matter including the solar corona and wind, local interstellar medium, and galactic matter using the Photek MCP340 image intensifier for the Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer (CRIS) experiment which launched on ACE in 1997. Professor W. R. Binns from Washington State University said, “The instrument utilizes a scintillating fiber hodoscope read out by the image intensifiers coupled to CCD arrays. The instrument and the image intensifier have been operating flawlessly, with no significant degradation in performance, since launch more than 10 years ago.”
People in the news: Photonic Products Group, Inc. (PPGI; Northvale, NJ), whose tagline is “Products Enabling Photonics,” announced that Joseph J. Rutherford joined its MRC Optics subsidiary in Sarasota, FL as VP and GM reporting to PPGI president and CEO Dan Lehrfeld. Frank Montone, MRC Optics founder and president, will step out of that roll and assume the position of VP of engineering and technology. Lehrfeld said, “Frank Montone and I had planned since our acquisition of MRC Optics in 2004 that we would turn over its leadership responsibilities to a successor in 2008. MRC Optics’ recent acute growing pains have caused us to realize that we needed to accelerate augmenting and re-aligning key responsibilities within the leadership team.”
Eugene G. Arthurs, executive director of SPIE (Bellingham, WA), was elected to the board of directors of Edmund Optics (Barrington, NJ). As a board member, he will serve on the corporation’s Executive Search, Nominating and Sales and Marketing Committees. Arthurs, who has a long and distinguished career in the international optical industry, has been with SPIE for the past nine years, and previously served as president and CEO of Cleveland Crystals, where he notably increased sales and profitability during his tenure.
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