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20 January 2010
Industry Newsmakers Fourth Quarter 2009
Industry Newsmakers
Fourth Quarter 2009
The following is a corporate news roundup from the Optical Society (OSA). This quarterly gathering of industry news is a complimentary service offered by the OSA PR team.
For more information on these or other OSA corporate members making news, please contact Lyndsay Meyer at lmeyer@osa.org or +1 202.416.1435.
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OSA CORPORATE MEMBERS
Coherent, Inc. – Coherent, Inc. Acquires Product Lines From StockerYale, Inc. Corning, Inc. – Corning Cable Systems Collaborates with Case Western Reserve University in Landmark Gigabit Fiber-to-the-Home Pilot Research Project Edmund Optics – Edmund Optics Helps Blend Science and Art In Historic Reconstruction Fianium, Inc. – Fianium Expands Worldwide Distribution Network IPtronics – IPtronics Develops Components for Light Peak Technology Ocean Optics, Inc. – Ocean Optics Spectrometer Confirms Water on the Moon Optimax Systems, Inc. – Optimax Lenses Reach the Moon PD-LD, Inc. – PD-LD Contracted for $17 Million Bridge Deck Rehab Design Project Team University of Arizona, College of Optical Sciences – Scientist's Camera Sees Artwork Down to Its Underdrawings |
Fourth Quarter 2009 Industry News
Summary
As 2009 drew to a close many OSA Corporate Members saw exciting uses for their breakthrough technologies emerge in the mainstream marketplace. From outer space to art museums, optics technology plays a key role in enabling applications in a variety of vital markets.
Focus on Applications
Both Ocean Optics and Optimax Systems are contributing to two NASA missions to the moon. Ocean Optics provided the spectrometer (“ALICE”) that confirmed the presence of water on the moon, as part of NASA’s LCROSS mission. Optimax Systems developed lenses that are being used on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The high resolution topographical map of the moon’s surface, provided by the imaging lenses, shows astronauts where it is safe and beneficial to land, as well as areas that are best to avoid.
PD-LD, Inc. has been contracted to participate in a $17.5 million bridge deck deterioration assessment and rehabilitation design project led by Rutgers University Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation. PD-LD will produce an Automated Nondestructive Evaluation and Rehabilitation System (ANDERS), which will apply its Volume-Bragg Grating technology to near-infrared spectrometry for rapid on-site analysis of corrosion and deterioration, in reinforced concrete structures.
Charles Falco of the University of Arizona’s College of Optical Sciences has modified a commercial 8-megapixel digital SLR camera for infrared use, creating an inexpensive, portable new tool that even amateur photographers can use to quickly see through layers of paint in artwork to reveal drawings, defects or other features on the original canvas. For example, Falco used the camera to reveal guidelines used by a French Renaissance artist to create perfect perspective in a painting, revealing that the artist understood and based his drawing on the constructed laws of perspective.
Corning Incorporated will supply product and design assistance to Case Western Reserve University and its partners in a historic initiative to test the power of super-high-speed Internet access to change people’s lives in inner-city neighborhoods. Corning Cable Systems’ FlexNAP™ Terminal Distribution System will provide design the university’s FTTH network. The solution is a cost-effective method of deploying optical fiber in outside plant distribution networks at speeds significantly faster than traditional field installations.
Telescopes of Vermont has chosen Edmund Optics as the optics supplier for its recreation of the historic Porter Garden Telescope. Russell Williams Porter (1872–1949), who originally designed the telescope in the 1920s, was a renowned artist and architect who was part of the design team that created the 200-inch telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California. Porter's Garden Telescope was a model for the split ring mount used at the Palomar Observatory and only a handful of the original devices exist, one of which is in the Smithsonian
Through a collaborative effort with Intel and other industry partners, IPtronics has developed silicon for Intel’s Light Peak Technology. The new silicon solution from IPtronics enables industry partners to build Light Peak optical components. Light Peak is a new high-speed optical cable technology designed to connect electronic devices to each other. Light Peak delivers high bandwidth starting at 10 Gb/s with the potential ability to scale to 100 Gb/s over the next decade.
Business Partnerships and Agreements
Coherent, Inc. acquired the North American operations of StockerYale, Inc. in an asset purchase for $15 million dollars in cash. The company acquired all the assets and certain operating liabilities of the laser module product line in Montreal and the specialty fiber product line in Salem, NH.
Ultrafast fiber laser manufacturer Fianium announces the expansion of its worldwide distribution network with the appointment of representatives in four key growth regions: laser Science Services Ltd. in India, Wooyang Photonics in Korea, FORC Photonics in Russia and Ammo Engineering in Israel. Through the agreements, the groups will offer Fianium’s full portfolio of ultrafast picosecondand femotsecond fiber laser and Supercontinuum products.
