News in Brief
17 Jun 2002
This week's news includes the latest in lasers, cross-Atlantic relations and an unusual application for solar power.
US free-space optics (FSO) start-up,
LightPointe, has joined forces with chip manufacturer
Texas Instruments, US, to drive FSO communications forward. The start-up will use Texas Instruments' optical MEMs technology in its latest tracking system to create more reliable and faster networks. LightPointe's vice-president of engineering, Jerry Clark, says the technology will make their infrared beam transmissions more resilient to environmental disturbances.
Staying with lasers, a new solid-state 460 nm blue laser is a world first, claims US-based
Coherent. The laser manufacturer's vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is driven by photon energy, rather than an electric current. Coherent hopes that the laser will herald a new generation of digital imaging and inspection systems as well as bioinstrumentation.
Moving to fiber-optics US telecoms giant
Corning, still fighting the economy downturn, has cut another 900 jobs. "The decision did not come easily," said Sandy Lyons, chief executive of Corning Cable Systems. "The decline in telecoms has been unrelenting, and we don't see a near-term recovery." Corning's job losses now total 6800 so far this year.
Forging links across the Atlantic, Bernard Landry, Prime Minister of the Canadian province Québec, has met with Germany's Bavarian Minister Edmund Stoiber to discuss optics relations. The Bavarian cluster of photonics companies, Bayern Photonics and partner organizations Groupe Optique-Photonique and Québec - Cité de L'Optique, have signed an agreement to intensify their co-operation.
And finishing with photovoltaics, scientists from the US
University of Arkansas have developed a kiln that dries wood with solar energy. Curved panels fitted to the kiln can dry green-oak lumber within three weeks, very cheaply and without any waste. Targeting the timber industry, co-inventor Jack De Vore said: "The timeliness of this is perfect. You can make it on a trailer frame and do all your drying in the woods." 
