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Photonics Industry News

• Raydiance closes $20 million funding round for ultrafast laser development
  November 21, 2008--Ultrafast laser manufacturer Raydiance (Petaluma, CA) secured $20 million in Series D financing that will allow it to scale its infrastructure, further evolve its technology, and enhance its ability to address larger commercial markets. Raydiance also announced launch of its new Discovery 2.0 system, which delivers double the pulse energy of its first-generation ultrashort pulse or ultrafast laser platform.
• Avo Photonics to manufacture Luna's MEMS-based tunable laser
  November 21, 2008--Optoelectronic packaging company Avo Photonics (Horsham, PA) has been selected to manufacture the PHOENIX 1000 microelectromechanical systems (MEMs-based) external cavity laser (based on the former Iolon Apollo class of C-band tunable lasers) from laser manufacturer Luna Technologies, a division of Luna Innovations (Blacksburg, VA).
• Edmund optics lands night-vision defense contract for $2.32 million
  November 20, 2008--Defense order will boost night-vision techniques to "see in the dark."
• OSA, DPS announce David J. Wineland first winner of Herbert Walther Award
  November 20, 2008--The Optical Society of America (OSA; Washington DC) and the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG) are proud to announce the inaugural Herbert Walther Award will be presented to David J. Wineland of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for his seminal contributions to quantum information physics and metrology, and the development of trapped ion techniques for applications to basic quantum phenomena, plasma physics and optical clocks.
• Metropolitan quantum-cryptography network will be available in Spain by 2010
  November 19, 2008--Researchers at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM; Madrid, Spain) have developed a prototype metropolitan quantum-key distribution network that will be ready for deployment by Telefónica (also in Madrid) on any Spanish urban telecommunications network by 2010.
• Philip Wyatt receives 2009 prize for developing multi-angle light scattering
  November 19, 2008--Philip J. Wyatt, the CEO and founder of Wyatt Technology Corporation (Santa Barbara, CA) has been awarded the 2009 Prize for Industrial Application of Physics by the American Physical Society (APS).
• Northrop Grumman releases FIRESTRIKE: first solid-state battlefield laser weapon
  November 18, 2008--Northrop Grumman Corporation (Redondo Beach, CA) introduced the FIRESTRIKE laser--the first ruggedized, high-energy, solid-state laser designed as a line replaceable unit (LRU) for battlefield applications and ready for order now. FIRESTRIKE offers a 15 kW fieldable laser and a combinable LRU building block for much higher power, based on a beam-combining architecture validated by the Joint High Power Solid State Laser program, Vesta and Vesta II.
• 'Femtomolar optical tweezers' characterize antigen concentrations
  November 17, 2008--NIST has licensed a patented 'optical tweezer' technique for detecting and measuring very small concentrations of a biological substance, such as a virus on a surface.
• Tom Baer is keynote speaker at Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar 2009
  November 14, 2008--Dr. Thomas Baer, executive director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center (SPRC; Stanford, CA) and a major figure in the photonics community, will be the keynote speaker at Laser Focus World's Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar 2009.
• LFW invites participation in new photonics training blog
  November 14, 2008--In January 2008, Laser Focus World (Nashua, NH) began its first online blog: Larry's VC View (see www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/330419) from entrepreneur Larry Marshall. Now, we are proud to announce our second online blog, "Working Smart in Photonics," from Sarah Diggs, a leading authority on technical training and process improvement for the photonics industry.