Business briefs

03 Feb 2006

Including news from DataLase, Corning, Scitec Instruments, Ocean Optics and more.

General company news:

•  Jenoptik of Germany is to acquire US firm MEMS Optical. The 100% stock deal broadens Jenoptik's expertise in the fabrication of complex micro-optics and is expected to close by the end of March 2006.

•  Corning plans to invest an extra $75 million into Samsung Corning Precision Glass (SCP), its Korean LCD glass substrate business. Corning and Samsung will each continue to own 50% of SCP.

•  Corning also intends to establish a new LCD finishing facility in China making it the first TFT-LCD glass substrate supplier to announce a production site on the mainland. Various locations are currently under consideration by the firm. The amount of funding for the project was not disclosed.

•  Sherwood Technology, a UK firm developing low-power laser marking processes, has changed its name to DataLase. According to managing director Steve Kelly, the company has evolved from a technology company into a complete solutions provider.

•  Heptagon of Switzerland has increased its workforce and manufacturing floorspace to meet the growing demand for its micro-optic components. The company says its manufacturing area has more than doubled to 440 square meters to house new capital equipment and operators.

Contracts and distribution:

•  Modulight, US, has received a $1.8 million contract from Technology Development Centre (Tekes), Finland, to develop high-power laser diode bars for solid-state pumping. According to Modulight, the program will be completed by the end of this year.

•  OptoTherm says it has received orders for its ThermoScreen fever screening systems from emergency planning organizations in the US and in Southeast Asia. Designed specifically for mass fever screening, ThermoScreen was originally developed to screen individuals during the SARS outbreak in 2003.

•  Electro-Optical Sciences (EOS) of the US has signed a production agreement with ASKION of Germany to produce a non-invasive tool for diagnosing melanoma. EOS develops hand-held imaging devices that emit multiple wavelengths of light to capture images of suspicious pigmented skin. ASKION started as part of Agfa-Gervaet in 1991 and was formed in 2005 as a management buy-out. The German firm is based in the Jena-Dresden-Leipzig industrial and technology region.

•  Shanghai Dream Lasers Technology of China has appointed Scitec Instruments as its distributor in the UK, Ireland, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic. Scitec will distribute Shanghai Dream's range of diode-pumped solid state lasers and precision optical components and assemblies.

Patents:

•  Ocean Optics, a specialist in spectrometer technology, has been issued with two US patents. One covers the composition and production of high-reflection silver mirrors or thin film optical filters and the other concerns tunable variable bandpass optical filters.

•  Metastable Instruments , US, has received its third US patent (number 6,992,843) on refractive beam steerers. The technology, which steers a transmitted light beam over a small angular range, suits airborne laser radar applications.