Recently by Jacqueline Hewett

Photonics West is often viewed as a barometer of the optics industry, and this year all eyes will be on the San Jose Convention Center to see how the wider economic gloom is affecting the photonics sector. As ever, the optics.org editorial team will be reporting directly from the show floor, and we'll be finding out first-hand how exhibitors are coping with the sudden decline in the global economy.

We'll be kicking off the blog in earnest at the weekend, when the BiOS conference and exhibition will be offering delegates a unique insight into the use of photonics in biology and medicine. After that, remember to check back here for regular postings from our editors at the main Photonics West event. Bookmark this page now.

If you're at the show, make sure you visit the optics.org team at booth 1437. As an added incentive, this year we will be hosting the Optics Golf Challenge, a game of skill in which players must try to putt three holes in one. The highest scorers each day will have the chance to win a bottle of whisky, the title of "Optics Champion" and the respect of their peers. We hope to see you there.

By Jacqueline Hewett

I've just received details of two new photonics calls in the 7th research framework programme (FP7).

The first call is a general photonics call covering areas such as communication, lighting, biophotonics and imaging. EURO 60 million has been allocated to this call. The call closes on 1 April 2009.

The second call is more specific and covers organic photonics such as OLEDs as well as other disruptive photonic technologies such as metamaterials and plasmonics. EURO 30 million has been allocated to this call. The call opens on 31 July 2009 and closes on 3 November 2009.

OLE magazine recently spoke to John Magan, who is the deputy head of the EC's Photonics Unit. He explained how calls for proposals work, what makes a good proposal and also how proposals are assessed. I hope this is a useful point of reference if you are planning on submitting a proposal to either of these new calls.

By Jacqueline Hewett

If your research spills over into the energy sector, you might want to read about a new call for collaborative research projects in energy with South Africa.

The initiative is being run by the UK's Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) and at least £2million is available to support proposals submitted to this call. The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2008.

The announcement on the EPSRC is quite vague but says that it would like to "encourage new and innovative collaborative projects focusing on energy-related engineering and physical sciences research with South Africa."

For more information, simply visit the EPSRC's Calls for Proposals page.

By Hamish Johnston, editor of physicsworld.com

2009 is International Year of Astronomy

In 1609 the Tuscan polymath Galileo Galilei was the first astronomer to point a telescope skywards. He went on to discover sunspots, mountains on the Moon and four of the moons of Jupiter.

To mark this milestone in the development of modern science, the United Nations has declared 2009 the International Year of Astronomy.

Now, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of telescope-based astronomy, 1000 secondary schools in the UK will be given telescopes - paid for by the Society for Popular Astronomy, the Royal Astronomical Society and the UK science-research funding body STFC.

Given that light pollution and cloudy skies are all too common in much of Britain, I'm not sure what these high-school kids will see with their telescopes - but hopefully it will boost their interest in astronomy.

After peering through his telescope, Galileo was able to present solid evidence for the Copernican view that Earth orbited the Sun and not vice versa. Sadly, he was rewarded with the counter-reformation equivalent of an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO), which wasn't lifted until 1992.

Hmm...is Galileo really a suitable role model for British teens?

By Jacqueline Hewett

I've spent part of my afternoon today checking out the Optical Society of America's (OSA) new Interactive Science Publishing (ISP) articles. The ISP articles, which appear in OSA journals such as Optics Express, link out to large datasets, such as a CT scan of the human chest.

You can view these images by downloading a special bit of software developed by OSA in cooperation with Kitware and the National Library of Medicine. Give it a go, and see for yourself. You know the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words."

Here's what an enthusiastic Donald Lindberg, the director of the National Library of Medicine, had to say about ISP.

"The ISP concept unleashes a new way of thinking for clinicians and medical researchers in the medical imaging research community," he said. "ISP parallels previous successful initiatives in molecular biology and genomics, where the accepted practice is to publish original data, but it provides the first tools to really integrate three-dimensional datasets from X-ray, MRI, CT, and ultrasound instruments into journal articles. We feel that this technology has tremendous potential for accelerating translation research and thus improving the quality of health care worldwide."

One of the first articles to make use of the new ISP functionality is entitled "Applying anatomical optical coherence tomography (OCT) to quantitative 3D imaging of the lower airway". This paper describes how anatomical OCT can accurately measure the shape, diameter and length of the airways inside the lungs, even as they expand and contract during breathing.

A second publication using the ISP reminded me of a news story I wrote recently on creating a digital embryo. This next paper has the title In vivo spectral domain optical coherence tomography volumetric imaging and spectral Doppler velocimetry of early stage embryonic chicken heart development and as the name suggests the researchers have come up with a new way of measuring blood flow and imaging the structure of the heart in a developing chicken embryo.

By Jacqueline Hewett

I'd just like to say a big thank you to everyone who voted in our online poll. Some 60% of you believe that Barack Obama is the right choice for the global photonics industry, with 20% voting for John McCain and 19% saying that the choice of president will make no difference.

While the percentages in our poll don't quite mirror the overall election results, we're pleased to see that your favourite has now been elected as the next President of the United States.

So, what does the future hold now that Barack Obama has been elected? If would like to add your thoughts, please do so using the "Comments" link at the end of this post. However, maybe the best way to answer the question is to quote the new President-elect himself as he addressed his supports in Chicago.

"America we have come so far. We have seen so much but there is so much more to do. Tonight, let us ask ourselves, if our children should live to see the next century, what change will they see? What progress will we have made? This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time to put our people back to work, and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and that when faced with cynicism and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless cry that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can."

By Jacqueline Hewett

The goLITE BLU from Philips

It's always a shock to the system when British Summer Time comes to an end, and certainly I know a few people who really suffer at this time of year. With this in mind, I thought I would post news of Philips' latest innovation: the goLITE BLU, which is claimed to be a natural and convenient way to relieve seasonal mood-related problems.

Philips says in its press release that light therapy has been shown to improve mood and energy levels by regulating our internal body clock or circadian rhythms - the body's 24-hour cycle of activity and sleep related to light.

According to Dan Adams, a research manager at Philips Home Healthcare Solutions, the body clock is stimulated by blue light like that found in the summer sky so when we get less of this light in winter, people start to suffer.

"The goLITE BLU represents significant improvements in portable blue light therapy," says Adams. "Science has shown that to stimulate the body clock we don't need intense white light. This is because a person's body clock can respond up to two times greater to blue light than to white light and white light is 50 times more intense. Our Bluewave technology, which is incorporated into the goLITE BLU, dramatically reduces the overall intensity of light as compared to bright white therapy devices and can help minimize potential side effects such as eyestrain, glare and headaches."

The product measures 5.3 x 5.5 inches and weighs 12 ounces. Philips stresses that the goLITE BLU passes ocular safety testing and all government and industrial ocular safety standards and does not emit any harmful ultraviolet (UV) or near-UV light.

The suggested retail price for the goLITE BLU is $279. I wonder how useful this would be to help my jet-lag when I travel long-haul to the US for conferences such as Photonics West?

By Jacqueline Hewett

I received an e-mail today about a Masters programme called CIMET, which stands for Color in Informatics and Media Technology. As I hadn't heard of this course before, I thought I would write a short post about it to pass on the information.

Four European universities have teamed up to offer the two-year CIMET Masters: the University of Saint-Etienne (France), University of Joensuu (Finland), University of Granada (Spain) and University College Gjovik (Norway). The coursework is said to cover photonics, computer vision and imaging science, and computer science and multimedia technology. There is a mixture of both theoretical and practical work.

CIMET is part of the Erasmus Mundus programme, and has just launched its campaign to recruit students for the 2009-2011 degree. The deadline for non-European students is the end of January 2009, while the deadline for European students in May 2009. There is a lot more information regarding the applications procedure on the course website.

"To qualify for admission, applicants must have a Bachelor degree in computer science, physics or mathematics," explained Hélène Goodsir, CIMET Administrative Coordinator. "18 to 20 Erasmus Mundus grants are available for non-European students. Up to 8 grants will be available to high-level European students. The programme requests high mobility, but it is possible to mainly study in one host university and attend only one semester in another university. All courses will be given in English throughout the consortium."

The CIMET consortium is also able to host academics specialized in the fields of optics, colour, image and media technology. Scholars (PhD minimum) will be expected to contribute to the teaching of one compulsory course or one optional specialization course, under the direction of a permanent teacher at the host institution.

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.

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!

By Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut, Aston Science Park

Eve at LEDs 2008 - made it to San Diego!

Hearing the alarm clock ringing at 4am? Setting the alarms off at Aston Science Park en-route to the airport? Flying to New York only to wait around for 8 hours for a connecting flight? Sitting on a cramped internal US flight with no edible food? A total travel time of 26 hours from home to San Diego - and what for? All in aid of visiting LEDs 2008, which promises to offer a comprehensive overview of the LEDs market.

We lost track of the number of times we asked ourselves "is it really going to be worth it" during our grueling journey over here. But we can safely say after our first full day here in San Diego - yes it certainly is!

We kicked off the day with a visit to the world-renowned San Diego zoo whilst waiting for the conference to begin. We got to see plenty of rare and endangered species, including polar bears and giant pandas. We certainly recommend it if you are ever in the area with a few hours to spare.

Giant pandas at San Diego zoo

After visiting the zoo, we made our way back to base at the Sheraton Hotel on the marina, which is also the venue for LEDs 2008. An excellent cheese and wine reception gave us the perfect opportunity to meet up with old friends, such as Chris Jolly from Diodes Incorporated, formerly Zetex Semiconductors, and also network with many others.

We are now looking forward to a very busy and exciting day tomorrow as the fun really begins at LEDs 2008. We will be joining the breakfast sponsored by Dow Corning at 7am, followed by the welcome from the Advisory Committee. As for the rest of the day - you will just have to wait until tomorrow's blog to find out.

Matthew Hidderley (left) and Eve Gaut will be blogging from LEDs 2008 in San Diego

San Diego, US, will be the temporary home of many major players in the solid-state lighting industry this week as two conferences and exhibitions roll into town.

For Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut of Aston Science Park's marketing and communications team, it's the perfect opportunity to gauge the market and see how UK businesses can exploit any emerging trends and commercial opportunities.

First, over 500 delegates and 80 exhibitors are expected at LEDs 2008 which is billed as the "world's most compelling business meeting and exhibition dedicated exclusively to the high-brightness LED industry". The event runs from September 29 through to October 1 and will bring together players at every level in the food chain to discuss technology developments and emerging revenue streams.

Hot on the heels of this event comes LEDs Measurement and Standards 2008, which will deal with controversial questions such as a common way of measuring quantities such as lifetime and efficiency. No doubt there will be a lot of discussion on October 2 and October 3 as to the best way forward for the industry. Everyone knows that standards are essential to promote wider adoption of LEDs, but finding the common ground isn't easy.

Matthew and Eve will be attending both of these events and sharing their findings on the optics.org blog. It will be a busy and fascinating week but the long-haul flight from the UK will be worth it to hear about new markets, short and long-term opportunities and technical breakthroughs.

By Jacqueline Hewett

Kodak's wireless OLED picture frame

Photokina, billed as the world's largest photo and imaging trade fair, rolled into Cologne, Germany, this week bringing with it a barrage of press releases detailing new innovations.

For me, one of the highlights was Kodak's new wireless picture frame which uses organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology. OLEDs are just beginning to break into the mainstream (one of the biggest announcements to date is Sony's XEL-1 OLED TV) so Kodak's news is another positive step along the path to making OLEDs not only commercially available but also commercially viable.

The frame has a 7.6-inch diagonal panel which does not require a backlight, making it exceptionally thin. Kodak also says that the product has a 180 degree viewing angle and an ambient light sensor that adjusts the brightness based on the surrounding light. Other specifications include a contrast white-to-black ratio in excess of 30,000:1, an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a resolution of 800 x 480.

The built-in wireless technology means that the frame can access videos and music stored on a home computer. Kodak even goes as far as saying that the wireless feature "enables connectivity to online photo and video sharing sites and Internet content portals for news, weather, sports and more. In addition to spectacular image quality, the new frame's Wi-Fi connectivity delivers a richer experience to the consumer, enabling them to connect to their favourite social sites and view their personalized content online."

The Kodak OLED Wireless Frame will retail for US $999 (MSRP) and will be available at kodak.com from November 2008, with additional online and retail distribution to be announced later in the year.

By Jacqueline Hewett

Zeiss laser rangefinder binoculars

When I was searching for news this week, I stumbled across a new product release that caught my attention: Zeiss has just launched a set of binoculars that features an integrated laser rangefinder. With Europe's defeat in golf's Ryder Cup still receiving media attention here in the UK, I wondered if this product could be an extravagant way for golfers to find out the distance they have to go to the pin.

A quick look at the specifications however and it is quite clear these binoculars are not for golfers. They are in fact for hunters. Here's a quote from the Zeiss website:

"The Victory 8x26 T* PRF is the world's first premium monocular with digital laser rangefinder, LED display and integrated Ballistic Information System (BIS). This monocular is ideal for hunters who demand optical excellence, precise rangefinding and accurate holdover information from a single, compact unit."

The binoculars come equipped with a 904 nm laser and can measure distances between 10 and 1200 m with an accuracy of 1 m to 600 m and 0.5% beyond 600 m. All it takes is a single press of the "rangefinding" button on the binoculars and they will calculate the distance to the target in around 1 second.

And as for the BIS, this bit of technology helps the hunter visualise their bullet's trajectory and will give guidance such as "aim 30 cm higher". But as the disclaimer on Zeiss's website says: "the BIS merely helps to support and increase reliability and does not replace your own assessment and experience as a hunter. We would recommend you to make some trial shots."

With all that information on hand, I wonder if we will one day see a golf version of these binoculars that say "you have this number of yards to go to the flag, use this club". Surely that takes the fun away from the game though?

By Hamish Johnston, editor of physicsworld.com

Exactly one month ago on 16 August Usain Bolt sprinted to gold in the 100 m dash at the Beijing Olympics, setting a new world record of 9.69 s. But could he have gone faster?

Many people think so because after the first 80 m of the race, when it was clear that he would win, the Jamaican appeared to stop trying and begun celebrating.

Now, four physicists in Norway have analysed video of the race and concluded that he could have covered the 100 m in as little as 9.55 s (plus or minus 0.04 s) if he had maintained his pre-celebration acceleration.

In a second calculation, the physicists argue that if Bolt had started to flag in the final 20 m, but still matched the acceleration of runner-up Richard Thompson, Bolt still would have finished in 9.61 s (plus or minus 0.04 s).

Cynics have suggested that Bolt held back so he would have a better chance at cracking the world record again, but the world's fastest man remains silent on exactly why he appears to have stopped trying.