A message from the staff...

As this is written, it is only a few days after the tragic events of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Together with the rest of our colleagues in the optoelectronics community, the staff of Laser Focus World is saddened and stunned by what took place. Our thoughts and prayers go out not only to the victims' families and friends, but also to the heroic rescue crews, and to everyone else affected by these unconscionable acts of evil.

Small bull shows big potential
Early on in the life of the laser, scientists recognized the unique ability of laser light to modify materials in many different ways, and much research has subsequently been directed toward taking commercial advantage of these effects. Their significance is evidenced by the size of the materials processing market, which currently ranks as the largest for nondiode lasers, accounting for more than 60% of total global sales (see Laser Focus World, January 2001, p. 88).

The model bull on this month's cover represents one of the most recent and intriguing manifestations of current materials processing research. The result of two-photon photopolymerization, the bull is actually about the size of a red blood cell and is a novel way of highlighting a technique with potential applications ranging from medicine to computing (see p. 17). Meanwhile, this month's "Back-to-Basics" feature takes a look at the evolution of the high-power carbon dioxide laser, which has been one of the mainstays of industrial materials processing for the past 40 years (see p. 89).

Elsewhere in this issue, other features include a look at developments in high-speed imaging (see p. 79), a discussion of intensified CCDs (see p. 97), and the outlook for passive optical networks (see p. 69). The Optoelectronics World supplement, which follows p. 114, carries three articles about the design, fabrication, and use of mirrors in optical systems.