Researchers at Darmstadt University of Technology (DUT), Germany, have demonstrated the use of photorefractive (2+1)D-solitons as a means of providing rewritable waveguides.
Although optical techniques have played a key role in surface-roughness testing for almost a decade, the systems are often complex, bulky, and difficult to align. As a result,...
Optical network systems based on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) require photoreceivers that can efficiently convert optical signals into electrical signals.
A look at the content of this month's issue brings to mind the long-running television science-fiction series Star Trek. Essential to the ongoing survival of the star ships is...
The French automobile manufacturer Renault has used an innovative optical system in its new concept car, the Koleos. First shown at the automobile exhibition in Geneva last year...
It's good to know that even the high priests of the computing community, such as MIT's Michael Dertouzos, are outraged by the appalling habits of today's personal computers.
For many conventional optical systems, such as a typical camera lens, ray tracing based on the geometrical concepts of Snell's law provides an excellent simulation method for ...
It has become common to see spinoffs from the space program finding their way into commercial applications, but at January's Photonics West conference (San Jose, CA) researchers...
Led by the auto industry and followed closely by telecommunications firms, US industry has announced layoffs at an unusually high rate this winter, which some say indicates a ...
InGaAs PIN photodiodes from Hamamatsu, Bridgewater, NJ; Water to ambient air-cooling system from Thermatron Engineering, Methuen, MA; Glass ferrules from Wilmad-Labglass, Buena...
People often forget that stress is not just a human condition. When subjected to some change in the environment, even plants will react physiologically or biochemically.
A group at the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL; a part of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) has developed a high-sensitivity single-photon...
I want to clarify a few points mentioned in your February article on Software and Computing ("Personal computer technology simplifies beam profiling," Laser Focus World, February...
The market for conventional light-emitting diodes (LEDs) has not grown significantly during the past five years, while the market for high-brightness LEDs grew 53% last year alone...
Power module from Analog Modules, Longwood, FL; Electro-optic modulators from LINOS Photonics, Milford, MA; Galvanometer from Nutfield Technology, Windham, NH; Film deposition...
President George W. Bush released his budget proposal last month and it contained both good news and bad news for the laser industry and other high-technology concerns. The good...
This article is the first in a new 12-month Back to Basics series in which contributing editor Stephen Matthews will discuss the fundamentals of lasers and sources.
The rapidly increasing complexity of optical networks requires efficient wavelength conversion. Several technologies are under development, as the search for the ideal wavelength...
With data transfer increasingly becoming a bottleneck in data processing, optical interconnects are demanding more speed from receivers—and are getting it.
QC laser becomes free-space communications link; Laser prints active indium-oxide optical microstructures; Extra layers make ZnTe quantum-well structure lase in green...
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech; Atlanta, GA) have taken a process similar to photography down to a submicron scale and come up with a potential...
The study of mechanical stresses on the human body assists in the design of useful medical solutions. Speckle interferometry is one method that gives engineers something to work...
Infrared products will experience strong and steady growth over the next five years, according to The Market for Infrared Thermometers and Thermal Imagers Worldwide, a market ...
After one of the softest planetary landings in history, ground controllers extended the mission of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) to allow the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft...
Science may have finally caught up with science fiction. Harvard physicist Lene Vestergaard Hau and her group at the Rowland Institute for Science (Cambridge, MA) have for the...
A recent investigation at the US Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT; Wright-Patterson AFB, OH) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (Kirtland AFB, NM) has shown that it ...
A research team at the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (Worcestershire, England) has developed a simple sensor for generating test wavefronts that combines a distorted ...
Because femtosecond light pulses affect matter in ways longer pulses cannot, ultrafast lasers have become important for research, and have great potential for industrial use as...
Although polarization-maintaining (PM) passive fiber is widely available, it can be difficult to find the PM rare-earth-doped double-clad fiber often demanded by higher-power ...
Short-pass optical filters (filters that transmit short and reject long wavelengths) are an important part of many imaging systems. They can be used by themselves or in combination...
