Recently in The lighter side of optics Category

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.

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 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 Tim Hayes

The Toshiba Fellowship Programme aims to strengthen UK-Japanese understanding through R&D activities in an industrial context. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, it was the first scheme of its kind to be run by a private company, and several Toshiba Fellows have gone on to become professors and leaders of research groups.

The Programme is open to PhD-level researchers of EU nationality, currently studying or working in a UK academic institution.

The successful candidate will take part in leading-edge research activities in one of Toshiba's R&D centres in Japan. They will gain up to two years' experience, and will be able to develop their chosen specialist research area whilst receiving relocation assistance and other benefits.

This year the Programme focuses on fifteen research topics of interest to Toshiba in materials, software and media technologies. One of them is the development of organic functional materials for future displays.

Alternatively, applicants can suggest their own topics, demonstrating their knowledge and commitment to R&D.

The closing date for applications in 12th December 2008.

If you want to find out more, visit the Toshiba Fellowship Programme web site.

Good luck!

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.

By Jacqueline Hewett

Frank De Winne on board the ISS doing acrobatics in space during the Odissea mission. Credit: ESA

For many of us, venturing into space is simply a dream that will go unfulfilled. So how about this as the next best thing? The European Space Agency (ESA) has today announced a competition to name its next long-term mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

In May 2009, ESA astronaut Frank De Winne will fly to the ISS for a six month mission. But that mission doesn't have a name, yet. If your entry is selected, it will become the official European name of the mission and you will receive a framed version of the mission logo signed by European astronauts.

If you're now screaming "I know, I know" at your monitor, here are the all important rules and regulations (which do complicate things a bit).

ESA says that the name has to reflect the following things:

Europe is exploring space
Humans are explorers by nature. Europe has a legacy in exploring Earth and will live up to the expectations in exploring Space.

Europe has its own Columbus laboratory permanently in Space
Europe uses its Columbus laboratory on the ISS for science, technology and education for the benefit of life on Earth.

From space our planet looks blue because of the water
Water is the basis of life. Clean water is the basis for healthy life of all humans on Earth.

To enter, you need to write a proposal containing your suggestion and explaining its relevance. This has to be submitted by e-mail to mission.name@esa.int by 15 October 2008. The competition is only open to citizens of the ESA Member States. You can find the full terms and conditions of the competition on ESA's website.

By Jacqueline Hewett

Day 1 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) created nothing less than a media frenzy here in the UK. In fact, I think the last event to rival the coverage was the turn of the century and the Y2K problem where reports suggested that all our computers were going to go into total meltdown.

Thankfully, there was barely a glitch in 2000 and here in the UK at least we haven't been sucked into a much publicised black hole. Tomorrow we'll be back on track with optics news, but for today, if you would like to catch up with all the events at the LHC, our colleagues on our sister website physicsworld.com can bring you up to speed.

Physicsworld.com reporter Jon Cartwright was at the LHC for yesterday's historic switch-on. Here is an extract from his coverage:

Tonight the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operations team can go home happy in the knowledge that they completed both their "principal" and "personal" goals. The principal goal - the one for the benefit of the world's media - was completed at 10:24 am CET (9:24 am BST) by sending a proton beam clockwise all the way around the LHC's 27 km-long ring. But later today, at 3:02 pm CET, the team's secret hope came true as it successfully repeated the exercise for the anticlockwise direction.

The time taken to complete both these feats - just under an hour for the first, and precisely an hour for the second - has come to be known as the two "golden hours".

In an interview with physicsworld.com after the day's events, Robert Aymar, director general of CERN, the European lab hosting the LHC, maintained he was confident all along that the team would achieve beam circulations in both directions. "We were prepared, and anything could happen," he said. "But there was always a risk."

"It is proof that we are now ready for new physics," he added.

You can read more of Jon's coverage by following these links:

Mission complete for LHC team

Home run complete, LHC set to repeat it backwards

LHC milestone day gets off to fast start

LHC switch-on: a preview

By Hamish Johnston, editor of physicsworld.com

You would have to be living under a rock in the UK not to know that the Large Hadron Collider will be fired up this week at CERN in Geneva. BBC Radio 4 is dedicating an entire day of programming to the LHC (called Big Bang Day), and this is being promoted with great fervour across the corporation's many TV and radio outlets.

This morning Chris Llewellyn Smith,former director general of CERN, was on Radio 4's Today Programme to reassure listeners that the world will not be destroyed by a black hole - or turn into a "strange goo" - when the LHC is switched on.

Meanwhile over on Radio 5 Live, CERN physicist John Ellis was chatting about his new paper 'Review of the safety of LHC collisions' with host Nicky Campbell. This is surely the first time that an article in the Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics has been deemed to have the same news value as the latest exploits of Newcastle United's ex-manager Kevin Keegan.

Indeed, one could be forgiven for thinking that the LHC is 'brought to you by the BBC'. In today's Times, gossip columnist Adam Sherwin suggested that the LHC start-up date was pushed back to 10 September because BBC superstar Andrew Marr - who will be presenting live from CERN on the day - is on holiday this week. The BBC has denied exerting undue control over the world's largest physics experiment.

Another 'quality daily', The Independent, ran the headline 'It's sex and drugs and particle physics as D:Ream star recreates the Big Bang' earlier this week. For those too young to remember, the article refers to Brian Cox, who is sort of a Liam Gallagher of particle physics and one of the many stars that the BBC will be rolling out next week.

And leave it to The Sun to say: 'End of the world due in nine days' ...unless Andrew Marr decides to extend his holiday, of course.

How has the press covered the LHC switch-on where you live? Has there been a media frenzy like what we have here in the UK?

By Pauline Rigby, editor of fibresystems.org

This August marked the anniversary of a key milestone in optics and telecommunications. It has been 50 years since the publication in Physical Review of the scientific paper that described the concept and design of one of the greatest modern inventions - the laser.

The ideas in "Infrared and optical masers" by Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes of Bell Telephone Labs, as it was then known, underpin the core technology in all of today's fibre-optic networks, although it wasn't until glass fibres with very low loss appeared that laser-based communication became a valid alternative to copper wires.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the laser, Lucent Technologies, the parent company of Bell Labs, issued a press release and threw a party in honour of scientists who had made significant contributions to the development of the laser.

This time around, not only did the event pass without comment, but it turns out that Alcatel-Lucent is pulling out of basic physics and semiconductor research altogether.

Nature reported the news initially, which was picked up by Wired in this stunning but rather sad photo story. Read it and weep, as Bell Labs becomes just another corporate R&D division, with research aligned to product development.

By Jacqueline Hewett

What does .ORG mean to you?

Some Friday afternoon trivia for you: How many websites do you think end with the .ORG domain name?

According to a press release from the Public Interest Registry (PIR) that popped into my Inbox this week, the number of .ORG sites has just topped more than 7 million. It adds that the number of .ORG registrations has consistently grown 20% year-on-year since 2003. These figures make .ORG the third largest generic domain after .com and .net. For reference, optics.org must have been an "early adopter" as it was established in 1996.

So what's the secret of .ORG's success? According to PIR, the growth in .ORG registrations has been driven by trends such as "social networking, issue awareness, online collaboration and advocacy".

It lists three notable examples as:

(i) the launch of community sites such as freecycle.org;
(ii) the increasing number of wikis for collaborative content, made popular by wikipedia.org;
(iii) the growth in online political organizing.

PIR says that "the individuals and organizations that are precipitating these trends have found a strong sense of community within the .ORG domain. This has fueled the phenomenal growth of not only .ORG domains, but also the quality content and the sense of trust associated with the ".ORG" brand."

There is an interesting quote from Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, in the press release. He says: "We can't imagine Wikipedia as a .com, .ORG is a core part of our identity and is available to anyone in the world. It is a great way for an organization to signal an ambition to be inclusive and global."

Tell us what you think by clicking on the word "Comments" below.

Does a website's domain name make a difference to you? In what way does ".ORG signal an ambition to be inclusive and global"? And how does that impression differ from .com?

Do you associate .ORG with a feeling of community?

For further reading on this topic, please see PIR's Get the .ORG advantage page.

By Jacqueline Hewett

Doppler LIDAR at the Olympics (Credit: Zhi-Shen Lui)

After 16 days of non-stop sporting action from Beijing, I knew I would be suffering from post-Olympic blues this week. That's why I decided to send a quick e-mail off to Zhi-Shen Lui of the Ocean University of China at the end of last week to see how his team got on using its Doppler LIDAR at the Olympic sailing regatta.

Here is Lui's response to my first and all important question: Was the Doppler LIDAR a success?

LIDAR wind map (Credit: Zhi-Shen Lui)

"Yes. The Doppler LIDAR worked very well during the sailing events," he told me. "The meteorologists were very interested in the horizontal wind field, especially when the wind was changing in speed and direction. The meteorologists used all the observations including LIDAR to decide when races should begin. Although we did not provide the data to the sailors directly, I think they could benefit from the efficient weather forecasting."

If you were following the sailing, here's my original post on the Laser sailing class, you'll know that the weather was incredibly unpredictable and some days there was no more than a breath of wind. I wanted to find out how the LIDAR performed in these light wind conditions. And it's positive news again.

"It is usually clear air when the wind is light," explained Lui. "Traditional methods like radar cannot obtain the wind under clear air conditions because there are not adequate backscattering particles. Doppler LIDAR has high temporal and spatial resolution and gives a very dense measuring grid (100m*100m grid over 25 square km) with high update rate of 10 minutes."

Good news all round, so much so that Lui and his team will be back in action in September when the Paralympics come to Beijing. A gold-medal winning performance for optical technology.

By Jon Cartwright, reporter on physicsworld.com

Infrared animals (Credit: Chris Lavers)

At first glance these images look like snapshots from that classic eighties film Predator.

It turns out, though, that the pre-eminent being responsible for them is not a brawny, gun-toting alien, but Chris Lavers, a technology lecturer at Britannia Royal Navy College in Dartmouth, UK. The images are infrared portraits of various animals dwelling at Paignton Zoo in Devon.

"I have been involved in thermal imagery for about 10 years now, and thermal imagery of wildlife with Paignton Zoo since 2002," writes Lavers in an email. "My interest is concerned with highlighting the plight of endangered species under pressure from both man and climate change, deteriorating environments, etc."

Lavers explains that thermal images can be used to observe animals without stressing them. "It enables a healthy baseline assessment of animals to be established and thereby aids veterinarian diagnosis," he writes.

Aside from giving giraffes, tortoises and other creatures a once-over, Lavers is also interested in using thermal imaging to copy some of nature's designs, such as iridescent butterfly wings. These could be employed in future stealth devices, he says.

If you want to see more of Lavers's images -- and are out and about in the south-west of the UK -- you can visit his exhibition. It starts on 15 September at Paignton Zoo, and moves onto the Living Coasts zoo in Torquay until the third week of October.

By Jacqueline Hewett

A lot of us here at IOP Publishing like astronomy, myself included, and try to keep up to date with the various missions that are exploring our solar system. For me, it's a combination of two things.

First, I am genuinely fascinated by the technology. I remember back when I was doing my PhD that even the vibrations generated by the air-conditioning unit used to cause problems. It amazes me that some of the sensitive instruments onboard these missions actually survive the take-off. I know they are designed to survive, but still, it just seems incredible.

The other part that I like is the human story and what I call "Apollo 13 moments" - those few minutes of waiting to see if the astronauts have made it home or did they burn up in the atmosphere.

A similar "Apollo 13 moment" happened on 14 August at the European Space Agency (ESA) on the Rosetta mission. This mission is dubbed "The Comet Chaser" and will attempt to make the first controlled landing on a comet.

On its way to the comet, Rosetta is going to fly past two asteroids, the first of which is called Steins, and it is using ESA's first optical tracking system to manoeuvre into the correct trajectory. Put simply, images from the spacecraft's cameras were used to calculate the asteroid's location and optimize the trajectory for the fly-by. The thrusters were on for two minutes to change Rosetta's course.

Steins is the tiny white dot at the centre of the concentric circles (Credit: ESA)

The camera onboard Rosetta is called OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System). Optical tracking of Steins is continuing with daily imaging slots between 25 August and 4 September when Steins will be much closer.

According to Andrea Accomazzo, Rosetta Spacecraft Operations Manager, the optical navigation campaign is providing exceptional results, far exceeding expectations. "The exceptional quality of the OSIRIS scientific camera - namely its angular resolution - provided data as accurate as expected, and made our current trajectory calculations very precise."

Other colleagues share this sense of achievement - and relief. "It is the first time that we have used optical instrumentation onboard a scientific spacecraft for navigation, as opposed to the usual techniques based on analysing radio signals," said Trevor Morley, who leads the Rosetta Flight Dynamics Orbit. "The exceptional results are really encouraging and we look forward to using this technique again in the future, if and when it is possible."

I bet they had some sleepless nights leading up to that manoeuvre. What's it going to be like when they try to land on a comet in 2014?