June 2010

Quantum dots for highly efficient solar cells 30 Jun 10

Current efficiency limits of 30% could be vastly improved by capturing "hot electrons".

Lasers and green tea destroy cancer cells 30 Jun 10

Pulsed red light forces tumour cells to "suck in" drugs from their environment.

Clean tech, nano featured at SPIE San Diego event 28 Jun 10

Clean-energy research and nanotechnologies join core optics programmes at SPIE Optics and Photonics.

Prism Awards open for entries 28 Jun 10

SPIE invites photonics innovators to vie for 2010 Prism Awards.

A new angle on biosensing 24 Jun 10

Tuning a little-known parameter optimizes plasmonic crystal biosensors for biomedical and environment applications.

Photonic crystals could enhance solar cells 24 Jun 10

Results of new study should help in the design of more sophisticated photovoltaics.

Spotting fake bank notes with butterfly colour 24 Jun 10

Structural colour of Papilio blumei recreated in the lab.

Laser celebrated in London and Paris 21 Jun 10

Nobel laureates lead array of luminaries featured at events honouring 50 years of lasers.

Lasers promise painless injections 16 Jun 10

Pantec Biosolutions receives a CE mark in the EU for its needle-free painless laser injection system.

Business briefs 15 Jun 10

Featuring news from Teledyne Technologies, Optical Research Associates, Schott, Anteryon and more.

Polymer laser pinpoints explosives 14 Jun 10

Organic lasers show tremendous promise for sensing the vapours given off by the explosives found in landmines.

SPIE journals expand access 14 Jun 10

SPIE adds to open-access suite with JBO delayed-open option, NIH deposits.

Optical refrigeration reaches critical point 10 Jun 10

Using lasers to cool solids may seem counterintuitive but significant recent developments in optical refrigeration have seen the field gather momentum. Jacqueline Hewett speaks to Mansoor Sheik-Bahae, who leads the research effort at the University of New Mexico, US.

Looking deeper into space 10 Jun 10

New information from frontiers of space and related data-gathering technology are the focus of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation.

Gentec acquires Spectrum Detector 09 Jun 10

Gentec Electro-Optics hopes to boost its presence in the US with the acquisition of Spectrum Detector.

Raydiance, Rofin join forces for ultrafast 08 Jun 10

Two big names in the optics industry join forces to develop ultrafast laser systems for industrial materials processing.

LED emits entangled photons 04 Jun 10

An optical quantum computer is a step closer thanks to an electrically driven source of entangled photon pairs.

Light blue strengthens white OLEDs 03 Jun 10

The future make-up of white OLED pixels could be a four way mix of red, green, blue and light blue.

Smart doesn't come smoothly 03 Jun 10

Early efforts to create an intelligent power grid have not been trouble-free in the US.

Corning unveils improved green laser 01 Jun 10

Corning says that its new green laser is the ideal light source for embedded microprojection applications.

Silicon waveguides open doors to mid-IR 01 Jun 10

Silicon nanophotonic waveguides are the ideal platform for creating mid-infrared devices such as optical parametric amplifiers, say IBM researchers.

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