October 2008 Archives

By Jon Cartwright, reporter on physicsworld.com

Hubble is back with a perfect 10 image (Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio)

After a month in "safety mode" following an error on its onboard data formatter, the Hubble is back online and taking photos again.

To evidence its good health, the grand old telescope has produced a "perfect 10" image of the galaxy pair Arp 147. According to a press release, the blue ring of the right galaxy formed its "0" shape when the left galaxy (the "1") passed through. At the moment of impact a circular wave of dense material rippled through the right galaxy, colliding with material moving inwards from the galaxy's gravitational pull. The resultant shockwaves and dense gas stimulated stars to form in a circle.

By Jacqueline Hewett

When a colleague forwarded me on an e-mail this week with the subject line "Lost dog finds way home using fibre laser" it was enough to spark my curiosity. What could lost dogs and fibre lasers possibly have in common? The answer is that fibre lasers are being used to write details on dog identification tags.

It turns out that the press release came from a US company called Laser Photonics, which is partnering with dog identification tag distributors in an effort to help return lost pets to their owners. Laser Photonics produces a line of marking and engraving systems that use either fibre or carbon dioxide lasers to write details on a range of metallic and non-metallic surfaces.

The product in question for the dog-tag application is the FiberTower XP and comes from the company's FiberTower series. According to a company brochure, the FiberTower series is a selection of fibre laser material processing systems for direct parts marking, unique identifier and deep engraving.

The FiberTower XP uses a 20W Q-switched fibre laser and was able to mark both steel and aluminium dog tags at a speed of 10 inches per second. Laser Photonics adds that the samples were marked using a true type font, with a power set at 98% and a repetition rate of 20 kHz.

So there you go, lost dogs do indeed find their way home thanks to fibre lasers. Is there anything the fibre laser can't do.

By Matin Durrani, editor of Physics World magazine

The search is on for Stephen Hawking's successor

Now here's a job that very few scientists can possibly have a chance of securing.

The University of Cambridge is inviting applications for the position of Lucasian professor of mathematics to succeed Stephen Hawking, who is set to retire next year at the age of 67.

According to the 22 October issue of the Cambridge University Reporter, candidates should be "working on mathematics applied to the physical world, with strong preference for the broad area of theoretical physics". The successful candidate is expected to take up the appointment in October next year.

Quite who will get the job is anyone's guess. Previous Lucasian professors include Paul Dirac, George Stokes, Charles Babbage, George Airy and, most famously, the great Isaac Newton himself.

Hawking has certainly made the job, created in 1663 by the then Cambridge member of parliament Henry Lucas, one of the most well-known academic positions in the world.

If you fancy following in Hawking's footsteps as the next - and 19th - Lucasian professor, applying for the job sounds fairly easy. All you need to do is submit a CV, list of papers, details of current and future research plans and details of two referees. The deadline is 15 December.

But be warned - Hawking may be retiring but will still be hanging around as "emeritus Lucasian professor". Stepping out of his shadow won't be easy.

By Jacqueline Hewett

There's just one week to go in the 2008 US presidential campaign as I sit down to write this blog post. It's an exciting time as America decides but this year in a first for optics.org we are also looking for your opinions on what candidate you feel would best serve the optics industry.

If you visit the optics.org homepage, you'll see we are running an online poll asking this very question. And unlike voting in some US states, answering our poll is quick and simple. All you have to do is highlight your answer and click vote. Not a controversial voting form in sight.

Claire Bedrock, publisher of the IOP's Journal of Optics A, attended last week's Frontiers in Optics event in Rochester and was telling me that one of the hot discussions was what will happen to science funding under McCain or Obama. Some Americans predict that under Obama science funding will be channeled into green energy. But what do you think?

Our sister website physicsworld.com has also gone into detail about the stances John McCain and Barack Obama have taken on science in general.

I'm not sure why I love the run-up to the US presidential election so much. Maybe its because I spent some of my childhood living in America, maybe its because The West Wing is one of my favourite TV shows, maybe it's the swing states or maybe its just simply because there is so much suspense.

But whether you love or hate the US presidential election, we are interested to hear how you think the result will affect the optics industry. Please visit our quick poll on the homepage to cast your vote and, if you want, leave a comment on this blog post.

The opening day of this year's Frontiers in Optics (FiO) conference was dominated by a packed morning plenary session where the speakers included NASA's John Mather as well as Anton Zeilinger from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Mather's talk tackled a wide range of issues and was entitled "From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and on to James Webb Space Telescope" while Zeilinger discussed "Photonic Entanglement and Quantum Information".

In the afternoon, delegates faced a tough decision between the first in a line of Special Symposia versus a range cutting-edge research presentations. The Special Symposium was entitled "Schawlow-Townes Symposium on 50 Years of the Laser".

2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the classic paper by Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes (Infrared and Optical Masers Phys. Rev. 112, 1940) that ushered in the age of the laser. First to speak was Townes himself on the early history and the development of the laser. He was followed by invited presentations delivered by some of today's pioneers in laser science including Nicolaas Bloembergen, Anthony Siegman and Steve Chu.

Four Optical Society (OSA) Student Chapters and Local Sections received awards at Frontiers in Optics (FiO) today.

"Student and local section programs at OSA are thriving," said Elizabeth Rogan, OSA executive director. "Recognizing the outstanding efforts of student researchers, student chapters and local sections serves as an opportunity to highlight examples of research and educational excellence to the wider optics community on both a local and international scale. OSA congratulates all the winners on their achievements."

The 2008 winners of the OSA Excellence Awards are as follows:

Student Chapters

Small Group category (5-15 members): Moscow State University, Russia

Large Group category (16+ members): Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics, Ukraine

Local Sections

Small Group category (10-50 members): Long Island Local Section of OSA, USA

Large Group category (51+ members): New England Local Section, USA

This weekend sees the start of the 92nd annual meeting of the Optical Society of America: Frontiers in Optics. With novel optical techniques under development for a range of diagnostic and therapeutic applications, as well as being used to help understand the basis and evolution of disease, medical research plays a key role in this year's conference.

Under the headline theme "Optics in Biology and Medicine", technical sessions include: "Light propagation models for therapy and diagnosis"; "Imaging of mice and men"; "Microscopy for diagnostics"; and "Targeted therapy and molecular imaging".

Here's a selection of some of the research highlights being presented at the conference:

Presentation FTuK5: Modeling reflectance and fluorescence spectra of human pancreatic tissues for cancer diagnostics

At the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), a multidisciplinary research team is investigating the use of optical spectroscopy for early detection of pancreatic cancer during endoscopic diagnostic procedures. Their goal is to help physicians distinguish between cancerous tissue transformations and benign changes due to diseases such as pancreatitis. The investigators used a multimodal approach based on reflectance and fluorescence spectroscopy of excised human pancreatic tissues. Subsequent spectral analysis revealed biologically relevant differences between normal tissue, pancreatitis and cancerous samples.

Presentation FTuD3: Optical intraoperative measurement of function in the human brain

Researchers from the University of Southampton in the UK will present details of a camera system that can measure brain function during surgical removal of brain cancers. The scheme uses blood oxygen levels - as measured via absorption techniques - to delineate function in the human brain. Measurements on four people undergoing brain surgery showed that this signal correlates well with the current mapping technique: electrical stimulation of areas of the brain bordering the region to be excised.

Presentation FWW6: Constructing human retinal capillary maps from adaptive optics SLO imaging

A non-invasive technique for mapping blood supply in the retinal capillaries will be described by Stephen Burns from the University of Indiana (Bloomington, IN). The technique uses near-infrared imaging with an adaptive-optics confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope to visualize blood flow within all capillaries of the light-sensitive tissues in the human retina. One key benefit of this method, say the researchers, is that it eliminates the need to inject contrast agents - as required for the fluorescein angiography traditionally used to visualize the retina.

Presentation FTuK1: Understanding light propagation in bone for photodynamic therapy of osteosarcoma

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is used extensively to treat soft-tissue cancers, but applying this technique to bone cancer is more challenging due to the complex propagation of light in bone. To address this, researchers at Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR) and Oregon Health & Science University (Portland, OR) have used reflectance spectroscopy to characterize light propagation in bone. Using a fibre-optic system to send and collect light waves through bone, the team analysed the scattering and absorbing properties of different bone tissues. They used the results to guide light delivery within bone for PDT of osteosarcoma in small animals.

Presentation FTuE4: Femtosecond laser-induced microvascular clots trigger Alzheimer's disease pathology

Researchers at Cornell University have used tightly focused femtosecond lasers to introduce clots in the microvasculature in the brains of rodents. They then followed this clotting process, as well as the subsequent changes in the brain, with fluorescence microscopy. The idea is to study the link between altered blood flow and Alzheimer's disease, by enabling scientists to directly look at the effect of clots in the brain's microvasculature on the development of Alzheimer's. While plaque formation in brain tissue is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, clots and haemorrhages in small blood vessels have also been implicated in the disease.

Frontiers in Optics 2008 will be held from October 19-23 at the Riverside Convention Center in Rochester, NY. The meeting takes place alongside Laser Science XXIV, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Laser Science.

By Eve Gaut and Jodie Batchelor, Aston Science Park

Eve (left) and Jodie at a Japanese tea ceremony

After an enjoyable evening out exploring the real Tokyo and a good night's sleep, it was time to hit the second and final day of LED Japan. Day 2 turned out to be as promising as expected with plenty of visitors keen to hear about the new and emerging technologies taking place within the industry.

We kicked off the day by walking the exhibition floor, speaking to every exhibitor about what their company has in store for the forthcoming year including any exciting product developments or product launches.

After walking the floor, we then proceeded to have one-to-one meetings over a cup of Japanese tea. Meetings were held with existing and potential euroLED 2009 exhibitors as well with delegates myself and my colleague Matthew had met earlier in the month at LEDs 2008, which took place in San Diego.

Visiting the show offered us excellent networking opportunities as well as the chance to get to grips with the latest LED news, addressing the reoccurring hot topic of LEDs emerging into the general lighting market.

A reoccurring hot topic was how and when LEDs will enter the general lighting market.

Robert Steele of Strategies Unlimited was very optimistic saying that these are exciting times for the high-brightness LED industry. "The past two years have seen breathtaking improvements in the performance of high-brightness LEDs," he said. "The industry is on the verge of having 100 lumen-per-watt commercial white LEDs, and laboratory results indicate that even higher performance devices are just over the horizon. These developments are helping to accelerate the adoption of LEDs in a variety of lighting applications and are paving the way for the ultimate adoption of LEDs in general illumination."

After speaking with many of the delegates, exhibitors and speakers at the show, it seems apparent that everyone has thoroughly enjoyed themselves, finding the first in the annual LED Japan show to be a huge success. Exhibitors were particularly pleased with the footfall at the exhibition, which was certainly impressive - probably helped by the fact that entrance to the exhibition was completely free of charge. Delegates seemed happy with the conference and also the representation of Asian companies throughout the exhibition hall, offering a different dimension to the show and an exciting market to explore further over the two days.

So after another tiring yet stimulating day at the show it was time to head for Narita Airport to make our way back to Photonics Cluster UK based at Aston Science Park. This involved a nightmare journey back via Paris, allowing us to really reflect on our experience. However it was certainly worth the time, effort and hectic schedule in Tokyo to ensure we were a part of the action at the first ever, LED Japan/Strategies in Light show, which in our opinion, was an incredible success!

By Eve Gaut and Jodie Batchelor, Aston Science Park

Eve (left) and Jodie on day 1 of LED Japan/Strategies in Light

We were awake early this morning, ready for the first day of this brand new annual conference and exhibition from Pennwell: LED Japan. On arrival at the TEPIA Exhibition Hall we were pleased to see the exhibition area was already buzzing with plenty of visitors clearly excited about the two day event ahead, and who can blame them?

With 54 exhibitors throughout the spacious exhibition area, an estimated 2000 visitors due to attend the show as well as a sell-out conference, it is clear that LED Japan is meeting the demands of the LED community within the Asian region.

Busy booths at LED Japan

Having walked the floor several times taking in the exhibition area fully and the immense amount of products on offer we bumped into Tim Carli, one of the main organisers of the show, who expressed his delight at how well everything was going. It was clear just looking around that there was a lot of intense discussion and stimulating conversations taking place.

Robert Steele, Conference Chair and Director of Optoelectronics Programs at Strategies Unlimited commented: "One of the more exciting developments in the past year was the adoption of LED headlamps in a Japanese, a European and an American automobile. Although the use of HB LEDs as backlights for LCD TVs and monitors is still in its early stages, the potential market is enormous." It seems that this is an area within the LED industry that we may be hearing more about in the near future.

There is also a conference running alongside the LED Japan exhibition. Delegates that we spoke to were impressed by the range of speakers from every level of the LED supply chain and pleased that the latest developments in HB LED technology, manufacturing and applications were all being addressed.

So after an exciting day at the show and very tired feet, we decided to head to the trendy Bar 28, which offers 'Lost in Translation' views over Tokyo Bay whilst sipping a cocktail or two.

Roll on Day 2 of LED Japan. We are thoroughly looking forward to exploring and networking further!

By Eve Gaut and Jodie Batchelor, Aston Science Park

The bright lights of Ginza, Tokyo

After a long flight over to Japan via Amsterdam we have finally arrived in Tokyo and what an amazing city it is. We were welcomed by masses of bright lights and plenty of smiling faces, exactly what we expected from Tokyo and we are certainly not disappointed. With a huge LED lighting sign for LG Electronics shining through our hotel room window, there is no forgetting what we are here for - to visit LED Japan 2008/Strategies in Light.

After touching base at the hotel, it was then time to explore Tokyo where the lighting is said to be on a par with New York City. We explored Ginza, which is where we are staying, as well as Roppongi, Akasaka, Harajuku and Ueno, all which were great to see. After seeing more than enough of the subway, we decided to end the evening in true Japanese style with a visit to the local noodle bar.

Having also learnt the essential phrases from the locals including Moshi-Moshi (Hello), Arigato (Thank You) and Sayo-nara (Goodbye), we now feel ready and prepared for LED Japan 2008.

With the conference all sold out we will be walking the floor and speaking with exhibitors telling them more about Europe's leading show in solid-state lighting: euroLED organised by Aston Science Park.

We are keen to maintain and create working relationships with companies in Asia as the LED market over here is thriving and crucial to the development of the industry. Visiting the exhibition will also us to find out more about the industry, what people are really thinking and what the future holds. More on this in tomorrow's blog.

Until then, Sayo-nara!

Jodie Batchelor (left) and Eve Gaut will be blogging from Strategies in Light Japan

Hot on the heels of her trip to LEDs 2008 in San Diego last month, Eve Gaut of Aston Science Park is back blogging for optics.org. This week, Eve and her colleague Jodie Batchelor are attending Strategies in Light 2008, which is being held in Tokyo, Japan, on 16 and 17 October at the Tepia Exhibition Hall.

This is the first time that the organisers of Strategies in Light have tried to replicate the success of their popular US event in Asia. And it looks like the event is off to a great start as the conference is already sold out.

This is hardly surprising when you consider that Japan is such a large market for high-brightness LEDs (HB LEDs). In 2007, Japan accounted for 45% of the worldwide HB LED supply. The country is also home to the world's largest HB LED manufacturer, Nichia Corporation, as well as five of the world's top ten HB LED suppliers. According to the event website, Strategies in Light Japan will now be held annually in addition to the original US event.

So, what's in store for visitors to this two day conference and exhibition? A quick look at the conference programme shows a comprehensive line-up of industry leaders covering issues ranging from markets and applications through to technology and materials. There is also an exhibition running from 10 am through to 6 pm on both days, with around 60 exhibitors present.

Strategies in Light was held in Santa Clara, US, in February and having attended that event and more recently LEDs 2008, Eve is in a great position to compare both the events and the US and Asian markets.

iPhone controlling optical tweezers

If you find a normal computer mouse to be just a bit too drab, you might be pleased to hear that a joint research team from Glasgow and Bristol Universities has decided to use a more stylish solution.

They used an iPhone to control their experimental holographic optical tweezers, employing it to remotely see the resulting image as well as control the particle positions through the phone's touchscreen.

"There were no modifications required," commented Glasgow University's Miles Padgett. "In fact, it was actually quite simple. The iPhone is linked to our computer by free VNC (Virtual Network Computing) software, running on both the phone and the tweezing computer. This gives a two-way communication link at 5-10 Hz."

The team, including Padgett and Mervyn Miles from Bristol University, along with key researchers Graham Gibson, David Carberry and Martin Lavery, have filed patents relating to their integration of various interfaces with their equipment.

Besides the practical benefits and the style quotient, the team basically decided to try the iPhone "because it seemed like fun!"

Our sister website fibresystems.org is welcoming Jeff Ferry, Director of Communications at Infinera, as a guest blogger this week. Jeff is reporting from the OIDA's Photonic Integration Forum, which is the first industry conference dedicated to the commercial development of photonic integration technology. As such it marks an important step forward for this technology area. The conference has been co-organised by OIDA and Infinera.

According to Jeff, the conference attracted an impressive 60 experts in photonic integration, filling the room to capacity at the picturesque Monterey Hotel and Spa, perched up against, and partially built out over, Monterey Bay, 100 miles south of San Francisco.

By Jeff Ferry at the OIDA Photonic Integration Forum (Tuesday 7 October: Day One)

The two most interesting themes of the conference's first day were scalability and power consumption. The debate over scalability turned into a discussion of integration on indium phosphide (InP) versus integration on silicon.

The InP supporters, led by Infinera, have the benefit of having large numbers of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) deployed by real customers. According to the chart shown by Infinera co-founder Dave Welch, Infinera has accumulated 101 million hours of PICs running in live networks without a single failure, with each PIC pair integrating 60 devices. That translates to a FIT rate (reliability measure) of 9, which is better than many single lasers and modulators in the market today. "Everything gets better when you integrate, reliability, yield, performance, and costs," said Welch.

Later in the day, Infinera PIC engineer Randy Salvatore provided some insight into how Infinera has achieved its reliability and yields, describing the six stage statistical process control methodology that Infinera borrowed from the silicon industry and applied at its PIC fab.

According to Salvatore, when compared with silicon chips and specifically Intel's well-documented history, Infinera has in the last two years made progress equivalent to six years' worth of Intel progress, moving from defect density numbers equivalent to Intel's in 1987 to numbers comparable to Intel in 1993. This, said Salvatore, is the silicon learning curve successfully applied to InP.

Professor John Bowers of University of California at Santa Barbara emerged as the most charismatic advocate of silicon photonics. He showed slides on his UCSB team's progress in several areas, including high-quality photodetectors made from silicon germanium, hybrid lasers made from a combination of III-V materials and silicon, and on the manufacturing side, they've reduced the time required to bond the two materials together from 12 hours to as low as 10 minutes - an important step towards making the technology practical, reliable, and commercial.

Bowers said that silicon CMOS technology makes it possible to reduce device size to the point where it becomes possible to get as many as 125,000 die sites (i.e. chips) on an 8 inch wafer. All those developments go towards making silicon photonics PICs more cost-effective than any other material, said Bowers. "Infinera is doing a great job, but the potential for lots more scaling exists," Bowers said. "The platform for VLSI PICs exists. Millions of devices [on a chip] is possible."

The next speaker, Meint Smit, of the Technical University of Eindhoven, brought a touch of Dutch pessimism to the conference. He said that neither InP PICs nor silicon PICs could get beyond 1000 devices on a chip before the power consumption of the lasers would make the devices impractical.

Smit presented an alternative, based on "digital nanophotonics," two tiny "microlasers" working in tandem to generate a single lightstream with far less power dissipation. He has dubbed this technology "indium phosphide membrane on silicon" or IMOS, and said it allows for a much larger number of lasers per chip. His prediction was that IMOS technology could push PIC complexity to 100,000 devices on a chip.

Both IBM's Clint Schow and Sun Microsystems' Ashok Krishnamoorthy focused on the same problem: the growing power consumption of high-performance microprocessors in today's multithreaded, multicore computer servers.

But what did they have to say? To continue reading Jeff Ferry's thoughts from day 1 of the OIDA Photonic Integration Forum, visit his full blog entry on fibresystems.org.

By Jacqueline Hewett

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Following my post on Monday about MESSENGER's fly-by of Mercury, I've just gone back to the mission homepage and the first images are back. I was planning on adding a few to my previous post, but when you see the images, it seemed a shame not to give them a post of their own.

This first one was taken on 6 October by the wide angle camera (WAC) on the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) about 90 minutes after the spacecraft's closest approach to Mercury. It was taken through a 430 nm filter and the image resolution is 5km per pixel. For reference, Mercury is about 4880 km in diameter.

Here is how NASA describes what you can see: "The bright crater just south of the centre of the image is Kuiper. For most of the terrain east of Kuiper, toward the edge of the planet, the departing images are the first spacecraft views of that portion of Mercury's surface. A striking characteristic of this newly imaged area is the large pattern of rays that extend from the northern region of Mercury to regions south of Kuiper. This extensive ray system appears to emanate from a relatively young crater newly imaged by MESSENGER. This young, extensively rayed crater, along with the prominent rayed crater to the southeast of Kuiper, near the edge of the planet, were both seen in Earth-based radar images of Mercury but not previously imaged by spacecraft."

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

This next close-up image of the surface was also taken by the WAC, this time through a 480 nm filter. The resolution is 330 meters per pixel and this time the image is just 340 km. The spacecraft altitude was 1800 km. The image was acquired just 9 minutes and 14 seconds after MESSENGER's closest approach to Mercury, when the spacecraft was moving at 6.1 km/second.

This image is one in a sequence of 55: a five-frame mosaic with each frame in the mosaic acquired in by all 11 of the WAC filters. NASA says that this new MESSENGER image mosaic is the highest-resolution colour imaging ever acquired of any portion of Mercury's surface.

The largest impact feature at the top of the image is about 133 km in diameter and is named Polygnotus. A second, comparably large crater at the top left of the image, is named Boethius.

I'm sure NASA will be adding more images to its MESSENGER science images gallery so its worth checking back to see what else gets posted over the coming days.

By Susan Curtis

Power search: search.optics.org

"Just Google it" has become something of a mantra of our times. Established just 10 years ago, Google is now so popular that its brandname is now synonymous with all that's good about Internet search engines - and in the same way that Hoover transcended its original purpose to become an everyday word, the verb "to Google" is now widely used and understood.

But the vastness of the Internet means that Google doesn't always return the results you're looking for - particularly when you're looking for specialized information. Try typing "wavelength" into Google, for example. Below the obvious listing from Wikipedia, you'll find information on Wavelength Surfing magazine and Wavelength Records (which, if you're interested, features Georgie Fame and Van Morrison among its more illustrious recording artists).

That's why optics.org has developed a Google-like search tool for the photonics community. Called search.optics.org, the tool has been engineered to return results from websites that have been selected for their relevant optics content. The search results are also categorized by type - news, products, jobs, etc - to make it easier for you to find exactly what you're looking for.

Type "wavelength" into search.optics.org, and you'll find that the results speak for themselves: the first page returns results on swept-wavelength characterization, wavelength meters and wavelength calibration. Drill deeper into the different categories, and you'll find product listings, research papers and events that in some way reference the word "wavelength".

Try it out for yourself at search.optics.org. And if you like what you see, you can download search.optics.org to your Internet browser to get instant access to search.

By Jacqueline Hewett

Taken on October 4 as MESSENGER approached Mercury. The time of closest distance is October 6, 2008, 04:40:22 EDT. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Back in August 2004, I wrote a feature about NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury and the laser altimeter that would provide a topographic map of the planet. I subscribed to the mission's emailing alerting service at that time, but knew that there would be a while to wait for news as MESSENGER had a 7.9 billion km journey to go on.

In my Inbox this morning though is the fantastic news that MESSENGER is (at this very moment) making its second fly-by of Mercury, passing just 200 km above the planet's surface. The main reason for the fly-by is a "gravity-assist" that will set MESSENGER on the right track to enter orbit around Mercury in 2011. It is also a fantastic opportunity to observe the planet.

We reported on MESSENGER's first fly-by back in January 2008 when the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) cameras imaged almost half of the planet including terrain that had never previously been viewed by a spacecraft. The encounter added another 21% of Mercury's surface to the total imaged close-up by spacecraft. The camera data include high-resolution (less than 200 m per pixel) images and colour images using the instrument's 11 colour filters. This provided the most comprehensive colour data of Mercury to date. The Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) provided the first measurements of the topography of Mercury as determined from a spacecraft.

This time, NASA says that the MDIS will acquire around 1200 images of a completely new area of Mercury's surface, the opposite side of the planet compared with the first flyby. The MLA will also be in action as the second fly-by will allow the first comparison between previous topographic observations and the high-resolution images. I'll add some images to this post in the next few days - they haven't made it back to the NASA website as I write this.

The excitement will soon be over however, and we will have to wait until late September 2009 for the third and final fly-by before MESSENGER enters Mercury's orbit in March 2011. Keep your eyes out for those updates! It's fascinating science, and certainly worth waiting for.

By Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut, Aston Science Park

After a long second and final day at the LEDs 2008 event, we decided to make our way into San Diego's Old Town for dinner. The Old Town can only be described as very 'Mexican' and within a minute of arriving we realised that the only food option was going to be Mexican. We headed to Cafe Coyote and sat down for a reflective meal on our visit to LEDs 2008.

Our experience at LEDs 2008 has been a great one. We have learnt a lot more about the industry, including the hot topics of the moment, as well as met with and networked with some key players in the industry. Visiting the show has also allowed us to meet up with many of the existing euroLED exhibitors, which can only be a good thing!

After a reflective dinner, we made our way back to the hotel where we arranged to meet up with some people for an after show drink. Throughout the remainder of the evening, alcohol certainly loosened everyone's tongues and real opinions came out. The general consensus is that the number of delegates this year seemed to be down from in previous years and that the exhibition area was a little quieter, however the quality of visitors were described as 'better' by being serious about the industry and focused.

Now seems a good time to thank the organisers of LEDs 2008, IntertechPira, for being so accommodating to their UK visitors throughout the event. We really have been treated well and felt the event was extremely well organised.

LED Measurement and Standards is taking place on October 2 and 3 at the Sheraton Hotel, San Diego. Topics discussed today ranged from Standards Making and Government Bodies through to LED Components and Manufacturers' Perspectives. There was an insightful talk on ANSI & IEC solid-state lighting standards by Andrew Jackson of Philips Lighting Company as well as others on development of LED performance standards, energy star SSL, photometrics for LED luminaries, SSL standardisation and high-power LED lamp testing.

We're heading back to the UK now so thanks for reading. Watch out for the Photonics Cluster (UK) team's next adventure to Tokyo to the Strategies in Light show! Coverage for this will commence to October 13 on the optics.org blog.

By Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut, Aston Science Park

After a well deserved sleep (it seems be getting hotter every day over here) we were up at the crack of dawn again to join in the breakfast sponsored by Dow Corning - again greeted by many bleary eyes. The breakfast was an excellent opportunity to network with conference delegates, who are usually inaccessible throughout the day due to attending and giving presentations.

This morning's conference line-up was very appealing, including topics such as recent developments in luminaire design and powering LEDs for mainstream illumination. Industry speakers included Kevin Dowling, Vice President of Innovation for Philips Solid State Lighting/Color Kinetics and Steven Parker, President at Lightech Electronics.

LEDs 2008 is taking place at the Sheraton Hotel on the Marina, San Diego

Following a rather intense yet informative morning in the conference, we made our way to the outside luncheon, this time sponsored by Seoul Semiconductor. We had the pleasure of sitting with Aristides Wade, General Manager of Seoul Semiconductor, who stimulated some great discussion amongst the rest of the table about when, rather than if, LEDs will move into the general lighting market. The truth is that only time will tell, but our discussions had timescales ranging from 2 to 5 years, so keep watching!

Following lunch, we took the opportunity to catch up with a few more exhibitors, before everything was broken down and packed away. Tim Bushnell from Oxley Developments has accepted our invitation to attend the Photonics Cluster (UK) Breakfast and Photonics Strategy Launch taking place at Photonex08 on 15th October. We also spoke with Mark McClear, Director of Business Development, Cree.

All in all we made many new and exciting contacts today, and after a hard days graft the only way to relax is a night out on the town. So with goodbyes to all of our friends at LEDs 2008, we made our way to the Old Town district of San Diego for dinner.

In tomorrow's blog, we will be introducing the LED Measurement and Standards 2008 event, also taking place at the Sheraton Hotel on the Marina, San Diego, for two days.

By Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut, Aston Science Park

Nuventix booth at LEDs 2008

We had our alarm clocks set for 6am this morning and were anticipating an exciting day ahead. It kicked off with a breakfast sponsored by Dow Corning, which was well received even though there were plenty of delegates looking rather bleary eyed. The breakfast was closely followed by a welcome from the Advisory Committee before LEDs 2008 was officially declared open.

After networking, we strolled around the exhibition hall to meet up with some friends in the industry, the first being Mick Wilcox from Nuventix. Last time we saw Mick and the team was in June at euroLED in the UK. It was great to be welcomed on the other side of the pond by a friendly face. Nuventix is already confirmed as exhibiting at euroLED 2009 so it was a great opportunity to catch up with them and to be introduced to some new faces in the Nuventix team.

Following our chat with Mick, we visited the Carclo stand to speak with Ian Bryant, another fellow UK traveller. Ian fascinated us with plenty of 'technical talk' about the new products Carclo is currently launching - so keep your eyes peeled for them.

Al fresco lunch at LEDs 2008

The round-table luncheon was sponsored by Rohm and really was the highlight of the day. We sat outside in the Californian sunshine dining with an interesting group of people, including LEDs 2008 speaker Hank Zabawski, Director of LED Technology for Heatron Inc, and Nuventix newcomer Gary Gay, Vice President of Worldwide Sales (who in fact has only been with the company for one week.)

The conference has covered a good mix of topics including sessions on the market and industry, LED technology advancements and integration engineering: materials, devices and optics. Tomorrow's conference line up, the last day for LEDs 2008, also promises to be as relevant for the industry.

To end the day, we made our way to the Grand Evening Reception, sponsored by Osram, where we met with speakers, panelists and fellow attendees over cocktails and sushi: another great opportunity for networking. We bumped into Tim Bushnell from Oxley Developments and Patrick Le Houillier from Optical Research Associates.

In tomorrow's post, we'll try to give as much insider information as possible....in addition to details of our evening out on the town. Goodnight from San Diego!