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04 Nov 2005
Including news from Coherent, Iolon, IPG Laser, Wahl optoparts, Novaled and more.
General company news:
• Coherent has acquired privately-held US firm Iolon for $5 million in cash. Based in San Jose, California, Iolon produces widely tunable lasers and other components such as tunable filters and receivers for optical networks. Coherent plans to use this technology in products for the instrumentation and display markets and says it will transfer Iolon's physical assets to its facility in Santa Clara, California.
• LightPath Technologies, a US maker of precision molded aspheric optics has established a Chinese subsidiary called LightPath Optical Instrumentation (Shanghai) Co Ltd. Based in a 17,000 sq.ft. facility in Jiading, the company says this new operation will allow it to compete for contracts involving larger production volumes. LightPath expects the subsidiary to have 30 employees by January 2006.
• IPG Laser of Germany has installed a 20 kW system at the German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin. The ytterbium, water-cooled YLR-20000 laser emits at 1070 nm and delivers the 20 kW output through a flexible 200-micron core fiber. The system will be used for materials processing research on alloys and steel.
• Wahl optoparts, a subsidiary of Jenoptik, has opened a new site in Mühlhausen, Germany, for making injection molded plastic optical components. Using assets acquired from Kodak's optical imaging systems unit, Wahl expects annual production at the site to rise to more than 5 million units over the next few years.
• Iridex, a US provider of laser systems for the ophthalmology and dermatology markets, has filed a lawsuit against Synergetics USA, a maker of medical devices. Iridex alleges that products made by Synergetics infringe its patent number 5085492, which covers disposable laser probes. Iridex is seeking monetary damages as well as a permanent injunction against Synergetics.
Displays:
• Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), UK, says it has produced a number of 14-inch full-color polymer-OLED displays using ink-jet printing. Based on an amorphous silicon backplane, CDT says the displays have a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels x RGB and were deposited using up to 128 ink-jet nozzles with no interlacing.
• Novaled has increased the current efficiency of its saturated green top-emitting OLED to 95 cd/A, which the German firm claims is a new record. The value was measured at a brightness of 1000 cd/m2 and with an operating voltage of just 2.55V.
Distribution agreement:
• Laser Physics is to distribute Exciton's laser dyes in the UK. Based in Dayton, Ohio, US, Exciton provides a wide range of dyes emitting from 311 to 1530 nm.
Facilities: The University of Southampton, UK, has pledged to rebuild the research facilities that were destroyed by a fire on October 30. The fire affected the Mountbatten building, which housed fiber-drawing towers, a microelectronics fabrication facility run by spin-off firm Innos and research labs belonging to the Optoelectronics Research Centre. The cost of replacing the building and the specialist equipment is estimated to be £50 million ($88.2 million).
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