Here are the 10 most viewed business and technical posts on the Laser Focus World website in 2018. It’s clear that basic tutorials, and how-to articles are always popular, as are features that provide market analysis. Some of the traffic is driven by search, some by links from other websites, and some by links from our e-newsletters.
Number 1: LFW Photonics Market Financials, streaming stock market update of photonics companies' stock prices and press releases, along with global stock information (15 minute reporting delay)
Number 2: Turning raw materials into finished products, a classic business strategy article by long-time columnist Milton Chang
Number 3: Annual Laser Market Review & Forecast: Lasers enabling lasers, 2018 review by the LFW staff
Number 4: Optical fiber sees growth as medical sensors, by Alexis Mendez, MCH Engineering
Number 5: Laser diode operation 101: A user’s guide, by engineers from Arroyo Instruments
Number 6: Four laser companies to exceed $1 billion revenue in 2016, a market blog by German Contributing Editor Andreas Thoss
Number 7: Fiber lasers: The state of the art, a 2012 feature that sets the stage for all that has happened since, by contributing editor Jeff Hecht
Number 8: How mirrors, lenses, and prisms shape light systems, another classic how-to article from LFW staff
Number 9: Five photonics trends for 2018, a blog of prescient predictions by German Contributing Editor Andreas Thoss
Number 10: Vertical-cavity Surface-emitting Lasers: VCSEL arrays provide leading-edge illumination for 3D sensing, a review of the technology by Holger Moench, manager of technology and strategy at Philips Photonics (recently acquired by Trumpf).
Conard Holton | Editor at Large
Conard Holton has 25 years of science and technology editing and writing experience. He was formerly a staff member and consultant for government agencies such as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and engineering companies such as Bechtel. He joined Laser Focus World in 1997 as senior editor, becoming editor in chief of WDM Solutions, which he founded in 1999. In 2003 he joined Vision Systems Design as editor in chief, while continuing as contributing editor at Laser Focus World. Conard became editor in chief of Laser Focus World in August 2011, a role in which he served through August 2018. He then served as Editor at Large for Laser Focus World and Co-Chair of the Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar from August 2018 through January 2022. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, with additional studies at the Colorado School of Mines and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.