TECHNOLOGY NEWS


For the latest technology news from the photonics industry go to www.electrooptics.com/technology


Prism Award winners


announced The Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation, an international competition that recognises cutting- edge products that break conventional ideas, solve problems, and improve life through photonics, announced its winners at Photonics West in January. More than 100 applications were reviewed and scored by an international panel of experts for the awards, which are now in their third year. The winners were: ● Information and Communications: Optical Receiver Module – Photonis


● Detectors, Sensing, Imaging and Cameras: TrueSense Personal Water Analytics – General Electric


● Defence and Security: LaserScan – Block Engineering


● Scientifi c Lasers: NT200 series nanosecond tunable wavelength lasers – EKSPLA


● Life Sciences and Biophotonics: MPTfl ex – JenLab


● Other Light Sources: EQ-99 LDLS Laser-Driven Light Source – Energetiq Technology


● Optics and Optical Components: Techspec Plastic Hybrid Aspheric Lenses – Edmund Optics


● Test, Measurement, Metrology: X-Cite XP750 – Lumen Dynamics


● Industrial Lasers: YLR- 150 1500-QCW-AC – IPG Photonics


Berkeley announces breakthrough in plasmonics


A team of researchers with the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley, have carried out the fi rst experimental demonstration of GRIN – gradient index – plasmonics, a hybrid technology that opens the door to a wide range of exotic optics, including superfast computers based on light rather than electronic signals, ultra-powerful optical microscopes able to resolve DNA molecules with visible light, and ‘invisibility’ carpet-cloaking devices. Working with composites featuring a dielectric


(non-conducting) material on a metal substrate, and ‘grey-scale’ electron beam lithography, a standard method in the computer chip industry for patterning 3D surface topographies, the researchers have fabricated highly effi cient plasmonic versions of Luneburg and Eaton lenses. A Luneburg lens focuses light from all directions equally well, and an Eaton lens bends light 90 degrees from all incoming directions. ‘This past year, we used computer simulations to demonstrate that with only moderate modifi cations


of an isotropic dielectric material in a dielectric-metal composite, it would be possible to achieve practical transformation optics results,’ said Xiang Zhang, who led this research.


‘Our GRIN plasmonics technique provides a


practical way for routing light at very small scales and producing effi cient functional plasmonic devices.’ GRIN plasmonics combines methodologies from


transformation optics and plasmonics, two rising new fi elds of science that could revolutionise what can be done with light. In transformation optics, the physical space through which light travels is warped to control the light’s trajectory, similar to the way in which outer space is warped by a massive object under Einstein’s relativity theory. In plasmonics, light is confi ned in dimensions smaller than the wavelength of photons in free space, making it possible to match the different length-scales associated with photonics and electronics in a single nanoscale device. ‘Applying transformation optics to plasmonics


allows for precise control of strongly confi ned light waves in the context of two-dimensional optics,’ Zhang concluded.


Fraunhofer scientists develop SLM for copper alloys


Research scientists at Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT (Aachen, Germany) have solved diffi culties that were preventing the use of selective laser melting techniques on alloys of copper. A 1,000W laser was used in place of the conventional 200W lasers used in SLM, to compensate for the heat dissipation of copper. SLM is a rapid manufacturing


technique particularly well-suited to producing complex metal components, some of which cannot be manufactured using


14 ELECTRO OPTICS ● MARCH 2011


conventional technology – or only at a high cost. In the InnoSurface project, a research team at the ILT has modifed the SLM process for copper materials. In the conventional SLM process,


metal powder is deposited in layers on a computer-controlled platform before being melted by


a laser beam, bonding with the existing part of the component as it melts and re-solidifi es. Although copper has a lower melting point than steel, its lower laser light absorption and higher heat dissipation make conventional SLM impractical, as tiny balls of molten metal form during the process, creating cavities in the fi nal component. The ILT team compensated for this high heat dissipation and low absorption by using 1,000W instead of the 200W lasers commonly used in SLM.


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