Business briefs

04 May 2010

Featuring news from IPG Photonics, Renesas Electronics, Corning, Jenoptik and more.

• High-power fibre laser specialist IPG Photonics has acquired privately held Cosytronic KG (COSY) of Germany. COSY's core capabilities include the development, engineering and application of joining techniques and innovative welding tools for many material processing end-markets. The acquisition is expected to have no material effect on IPG's financial results in 2010. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"With the acquisition of Cosytronic, we plan to enhance IPG's product portfolio of laser welding tools with fibre lasers – a promising complementary market for us," said Valentin Gapontsev, IPG's chairman and CEO. "Combining our state-of-the-art fibre laser technology with COSY's proven and innovative laser welding technology opens up exciting opportunities to build robust integrated robotic solutions for various automotive, sheet metal production and other material applications."

• Renesas Electronics Corporation of Japan has unveiled a 405 nm laser diode featuring a structure that incorporates an optical waveguide into the semiconductor device. This combination is said to enable high power output and excellent suitability for mass production. The new blue-violet semiconductor laser diode, part number NV4A61MF, offers an optical power output of 350 mW and is being targeted at Blu-ray disc recording and playback. Renesas is aiming to release a 420 mW device by December 2010.

• Discussing Corning's Q1 2010 financial results, Wendell P Weeks, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, said that the display technologies side of the business had essentially "sold out". Overall, sales were $1.55bn in Q1, an increase of 1% sequentially and 57% year-on-year. Looking forward, in its display technologies segment, Corning expects second-quarter volume will increase in the mid-single digits. The company said it plans on running all available capacity by the end of quarter two to meet panel maker demand.

• Jenoptik OptiSys, a joint venture between Jenoptik's optical systems division and Dagesh F K, has won its first volume order. The deal covers assembly and test of medical imaging systems for preventive diagnostics and comes from an international leader in ophthalmologic medical instrumentation. The assembly and test work will be performed in Jenoptik OptiSys's facility in northern Israel.

• Optimax has said that it is the first optics manufacturer in the US to develop the capabilities to manufacture synchrotron mirrors for the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The company says that it has successfully manufactured toroidal optics to be included in an X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) microscope at BNL. The finished optic had a clear aperture of 103.5 × 31 mm with a 100 nm thick gold coating.

• Eight new National Centres of Competence for Research (NCCRs) are being set up in Switzerland. One of the eight NCCRs will be led by Ursula Keller of ETH Zurich. The NCCR Molecular Ultrafast Science will receive CHF17.3m in funding between 2010 and 2013. A second ETH Zurich researcher, Klaus Ensslin, will head the NCCR Quantum Science and Technology. It will receive CHF17.1m between 2011 and 2014.

• Ambicare Health has commenced UK roll-out of its lead product, the Ambulight PDT, the world's first skin cancer treatment using a small disposable light emitting sticking plaster worn by the patient. Ambicare has exclusively appointed Schuco, specialist suppliers of equipment for all skin technologies, to handle its UK distribution arrangements.