• Valerie Coffey-Rosich

    Val At Desk 624300d107df6
    Contributing Editor

    Valerie Coffey-Rosich is a freelance science and technology writer and editor and a contributing editor for Laser Focus World; she previously served as an Associate Technical Editor (2000-2003) and a Senior Technical Editor (2007-2008) for Laser Focus World.

    Valerie holds a BS in physics from the University of Nevada, Reno, and an MA in astronomy from Boston University. She specializes in editing and writing about optics, photonics, astronomy, and physics in academic, reference, and business-to-business publications. In addition to Laser Focus World, her work has appeared online and in print for clients such as the American Institute of Physics, American Heritage Dictionary, BioPhotonics, Encyclopedia Britannica, EuroPhotonics, the Optical Society of America, Photonics Focus, Photonics Spectra, Sky & Telescope, and many others. She is based in Palm Springs, California. 

    (Courtesy of Piezosystem Jena USA)
    FIGURE 1. The MICI80-KMI53 microscopy stage from Piezosystem Jena, available in both open- and closed-loop versions, can be used for positioning or scanning with sub-nanometer resolution. The ultrastiff flexure design drives the digital micrometer heads with a resolution of 1 µm, a manual range of motion of 25 mm in the x-y axes, and a piezo-based range of motion of 80 µm. A proprietary frame design links the x-y axes in a single piece of metal for superior orthogonality and flatness. A special coil spring system delivers a constant force throughout the manual travel range of the stage, allowing preload optimization over the entire range of travel for extremely low drifting behavior.
    Valerie Coffey-Rosich
    April 9, 2025
    Manufacturers have made strides in stages and flexure design to enable fast, accurate, nanometer-scale motion control in high-resolution microscopy and other short-travel applications...
    FIGURE 1. Co first-authors Anthony White (left) and Geun Ho Ahn (center) joined their graduate advisor, Jelena Vučković, professor of electrical engineering at Stanford's Ginzton Laboratory, in developing an integrated passive nonlinear optical isolator based on ring resonators.
    Researchers at Stanford University’s Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab created a new chip-scale laser isolator with potential for a significant impact in numerous industries...
    (Courtesy of O. Katz/Duke University)
    FIGURE 1. The NASDUCK Floquet quantum detector for ultralight axion-like dark matter contains a strong, magnetically driven Floquet field, BF, which interacts with the background dark matter halo of the Milky Way. Inside the chamber a small cubical glass cell containing dense spin-polarized 129Xe gas and 85Rb vapor acts as an in situ precision optical magnetometer. One laser optically pumps the spins of Rb atoms while a second laser probes the coherent spin oscillations that can be generated by a non-gravitational interaction with the axion-like dark matter particles. The results help constrain the mass limits of dark-matter particles in interactions with other particles.
    Valerie Coffey-Rosich
    Jan. 13, 2023
    Advances in novel detectors are solving the most elusive mysteries in science—from quantum teleportation to neutrinos and dark matter.