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Photonics Industry News

• Photovoltaic electricity to be cheaper than conventional by 2014, say students
  July 2, 2008--Now that Americans are paying gas prices approaching those that many Europeans have been paying for years, "green" technology is becoming a focus of some mainstream U.S. companies.
• Montana State University researchers receive $750,000 laser grant from NASA
  July 1, 2008--Montana State University (MSU; Bozeman, MT) researchers received a three-year, $750,000 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Admimistration (NASA; Washington, DC) to fund their work on using lasers to study earth's atmosphere and climate. The grant comes from the space agency's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research; MSU is one of only a dozen universities around the country to receive one of the grants.
• StockerYale awarded evergreen contract for laser diodes
  July 1, 2008--StockerYale (Salem, NH), a designer and manufacturer of structured light lasers, light-emitting diode (LED) modules, and specialty optical fibers, announced that its Photonics Products unit has been awarded an evergreen contract to supply custom designed, packaged laser diodes for the telecommunications division of a diversified, multi-billion dollar global technology company.
• LED Roadmapping Conference in the Netherlands to present future LED trends
  June 30, 208--The LED Roadmapping Conference on October 30, 2008 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, will present industry and technology roadmaps and trends to look for in the future of the light-emitting-diode industry.
• Electrophysics and Opgal Optronic join forces
  June 30, 2008--Infrared imaging manufacturer Opgal Optronics Industries partners with distributor Electrophysics.
• Optical designer and past SPIE president Warren J. Smith mourned by colleagues
  June 27, 2008--Widely regarded as one of the most influential leaders in the optical design and engineering field, Warren J. Smith died on June 19 in California at age 85. Smith was a Fellow and past president of SPIE (Bellingham, WA), and since 1987 had been at Rockwell Collins Kaiser Electro-Optics (Carlsbad, CA), where he was Chief Scientist Emeritus.
• USDC & Plextronics develop new hole-injection-layer technology for OLED displays
  June 27, 2008--The U.S. Display Consortium (USDC; San Jose, CA), a public/private partnership chartered with developing the flexible electronics and displays industry supply chain, announced that a recent project with Plextronics (Pittsburgh, PA) has aided in the development of a new hole-injection-layer (HIL) technology to enable commercialization of high-performance, low-cost, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays.
• Lumera polymer modulators pass Telcordia testing; stock soars
  June 24, 2008--Photonic communications component manufacturer Lumera Corporation (Bothell, WA) successfully completed Telcordia standard reliability testing of its packaged polymer-based electro-optic modulators. News of the result caused its stock to soar 38% early in the day, and settle back to an approximate 24% gain to $1.07 by end of day. Lumera also announced that activities associated with its proposed merger with GigOptix, LLC are progressing.
• Laser Focus World and OIDA announce "green" optics conference, OPTOmism
  June 23, 2008--Laser Focus World and the OIDA have announced a new conference and exhibition: OPTOmism: Photonics for the Green Revolution, to be held May 18-20, 2009 in Santa Clara, CA.
• 2008 Arthur L. Schawlow Award in Laser Science and Engineering bestowed on Eckhard Beyer
  June 20, 2008--Eckhard Beyer, professor at the University of Technology Dresden and Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS in Germany, joined the "who's who" list of extraordinary laser pioneers by recently being awarded the highly distinguished 2008 Arthur L. Schawlow Award for his outstanding contributions to laser science and engineering.