Contents: April 2006 edition

11 Apr 2006

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MARKET REPORT

Nanophotonics means products, not markets

Nanotechnology has long promised to revolutionize the optics industry, but major commercial success for nanophotonics products has remained elusive. Tom Hausken argues that the revolution is happening, just not in the way that we anticipated.

LITHOGRAPHY

Immersion ideas extend optical lithography

IBM announced last month that it had fabricated the smallest high-quality line patterns ever created by optical lithography. Jacqueline Hewett spoke to the researchers involved to find out how they did it and what the breakthrough means for the industry.

REGIONS OF EXPERTISE

Bordeaux region ripe for photonics growth

James Tyrrell visits the Aquitaine region in south-west France to give OLE readers a taste of what the "Route des Lasers" can offer the photonics industry.

INTERVIEW

Attosecond lasers light up the atomic realm

Physicists are now producing attosecond laser pulses that are short enough to probe atomic and subatomic electron processes. Rob van den Berg spoke to Ferenc Krausz and Reinhard Kienberger, two pioneers in attosecond physics, about their work.

RCLEDs

Resonant-cavity LEDs fire up in-car networks

The plastic optical fibre networks that feature in many of today's cars have data transmission rates that are limited by LED switching speeds. This barrier can be overcome, says Firecomms' John Lambkin, if these sources are replaced with resonant-cavity LEDs.

PRODUCT GUIDE

Micro-optics enable system innovations

Micro-optics are enabling new generations of compact optical devices thanks to their functionality and cost-efficiency. Thomas Asshauer and Matthias Merschdorf explain.