Bellingham, Wash. – SPIE Photonics West set new attendance records for numbers of attendees and exhibitors at the San Francisco event last week. Approximately 19,390 presenters, exhibitors, and visitors participated at the Moscone Center event.
Enthusiasm was high among technical attendees and exhibitors at the 1,162-company Photonics West exhibition that ran midweek. Companies reported strong activity on the exhibition floor, with both returning and new customers visiting booths to do business. "Photonics West is the world event in the industry," said one exhibitor.
"Photonics West is the best meeting I have ever attended because the conference and exhibition brings interdisciplinary science – physics, chemistry, biology and more – together with engineering. It's fantastic," said attendee James Wynne of IBM Watson Research Center.
Included among the more than 4,100 technical presentations at the event that have impact on the issues facing our global society were:
- International plenary speakers reporting on important advances in optoelectronics, nanotechnology, MOEMS-MEMS, and all varieties of lasers
- Expert panel discussions on markets for solar and lighting, silicon photonics, lasers, and other photonics technologies
- Launch of a public-input phase of a new study on the photonics industry led by the National Research Council and supported by other agencies and organizations as well as SPIE. The report will update the “Harnessing Light” survey authored in 1998 by the NRC for the National Academies.