Albuquerque, NM, July 11, 2002 - Coming out of Sandia National Laboratories just a few years ago, WaveFront Sciences has captured yet another prestigious award in the field of applied research. The difference this time is that WaveFront President Tim Turner, Vice President and Technical Director Dr. Dan Neal, along with their team of scientists and engineers have claimed two spots on R&D Magazine's top 100 list: COAS (Complete Ophthalmic Analysis
System) and Columbus Wafer Nanotopography System.
The 40th Annual R&D 100 Award may be the most distinguished honor that can be bestowed on a technology company, identifying the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace in 2001. Industrial, academic, and government researchers from around the world submit their application for this award, which strives to acknowledge those scientists who have moved the bar another notch higher in their continuing efforts to develop technology-based products that work to improve the human experience. There is no ranking for R&D 100 winning products, as each product is judged on its own technical merits.
WaveFront Sciences' COAS and Columbus join ranks with household names such as Ford, Hitachi, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Dow Chemical, Pennzoil, GE, and Toyota. Past winners also include Sandia National Laboratories-WaveFront's birthplace-and a host of other government technology centers like NASA. And while this year's list of winners is still confidential, last year's winning products represented Canada, Israel, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, and more than 30 of the United States.
The first of WaveFront Sciences' two winning products, COAS, allows for extremely accurate, non-contact analysis of the human eye. COAS reads your eye, without actually touching it, to assist in the creation of "perfect" prescriptions for eyeglasses or contact lenses. Additionally, COAS can provide laser surgeons with a detailed map of your eye, providing better results for LASIK and related surgeries. In the future, WaveFront Sciences hopes to provide vision researchers with new dimensions of information critical to the prevention of disease-related blindness.
Columbus Wafer Nanotopography System, the second of WaveFront Sciences winning products, measures the surface quality of silicon wafers in the same way that COAS measures your eye. But if you think this technology doesn't impact your life, think again. Turner believes that Columbus "will one day touch the lives of every American, if not every individual in the world."
Consumer markets are continually pushing for better, cheaper, smaller electronics components. But the smaller the circuitry, the more critical the quality of materials becomes. Columbus detects surface ripples and other imperfections to ensure higher quality control, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in production costs. In the near future, every microprocessor will likely have been built on a wafer that has been subjected to nanotopography screening.
Both of WaveFront Sciences' products are derived from their patented CLAS-2D technology, which has been in use for several years in various optics and laser metrology applications. All of WaveFront Science's products also employ their patented wavefront sensor-a device that uses reflected light to measure and then analyze the quality of a surface. By mounting an array of tiny lenses in front of a video camera, wavefront sensors provide highly accurate surface maps. Once used for high-energy lasers and astronomy, wavefront sensors are now being applied to measurement problems of all sorts.
Founded in 1996, WaveFront Sciences, Inc. provides full-service design and manufacturing capability for micro-optics and wavefront sensor based instrumentation. A result of congress's technology transfer initiative, WaveFront Sciences is a shining example of the privatization of government resources, applying former aerospace technology to consumer products. During the past few decades, the research community's growing emphasis on technology transfer has boosted the number of joint public-private submissions for the R&D 100 Award.
For more informaation, visit www.wavefrontsciences.com.
Laser Focus World