Sensores

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has launched Project DioHELIOS, part of its Fusion 2040 – Research on the Way to the Fusion Power Plant funding initiative. The three-year joint project, funded with €17.3 million (~$19 million), aims to advance high-power laser diodes for fusion power plants, which the German government expects to be built as early as the 2040s.

Project DioHELIOS brings together ams-OSRAM, the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut (FBH), Leibniz-Institut für Höchstfrequenztechnik (FBH), the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT, Jenoptik, Laserline, and TRUMPF to boost the power and efficiency of high-power laser diodes and develop approaches for their automated mass...

Opterro, Inc. has signed a memorandum of understanding with Gooch & Housego PLC (G&H), manufacturer of photonic components and systems, aiming to combine Opterro’s fiber-optic distributed systems with G&H’s high-volume manufacturing capabilities to address the needs of industry and government customers across various sectors. The partnership will initially investigate commercial feasibility, with the intent to develop a long-term supply agreement that facilitates the expanding global distribution of Opterro’s sensing systems and end-to-end solutions. President of G&H Stratos Kehayas will also join Opterro’s board of directors as an observer.

The COMBS research team. Courtesy of RMIT University....

NY CREATES’ Albany NanoTech Complex is the expected location for the CHIPS for America EUV Accelerator, the first of three National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC) facilities. The designation will be supported by an estimated $825 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce and is expected to garner significant investment in extreme ultraviolet (lithography) R&D under the CHIPS and Science Act.

The EUV Accelerator will serve as a focal point for advanced semiconductor R&D initiatives and support programs to bolster the necessary workforce. Research at the facility will focus on innovation in semiconductor technologies with the aim of supporting the U.S. domestic supply chain and the development of...

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have increased the measurement rate of Raman spectroscopy by 100-fold. Since the measurement rate of the technique has been a major limitation, the improvement is expected to aid advancements in multiple fields relying on the identification of molecules and cells, such as biomedical diagnostics and material analytics.

As a mode of identification for cells and molecules, Raman spectroscopy is widely used, but it’s limited in its ability to keep up with the speed of changes in certain chemical and physical reactions due to the low scattering cross section.

Over the last decade, various broadband-coherent Raman scattering spectroscopy techniques have been developed to address the...

The Israeli Ministry of Defense has committed more than $500 million to expand serial production of the country’s first domestically developed weapon system, the Iron Beam, with lead developers Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems.

Iron Beam is a ground-based 100 kW-class high energy laser air defense system designed to counter aerial threats, including rockets, mortars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise missiles. The Israeli Ministry of Defense’s Directorate of Defense, Research & Development (DDR&D) R&D Unit leads the project.

Under a newly signed contract, Elbit Systems will provide the Israeli Ministry of Defense with its high-powered laser solution as well as ongoing support...

Gooch & Housego (G&H) has acquired Phoenix Optical Technologies, a manufacturer of precision optics technology based in St. Asaph, Wales. The acquisition, valued at up to £6.75 million (~$8.8 million), strengthens G&H’s position in aerospace and defense while expanding its presence in U.K. and European markets as a supplier to defense primes.

Phoenix Optical Technologies brings complementary expertise in precision optics processes, including prisms, domes, specialist machining and single point diamond turning. The company additionally offers onsite capabilities for the molding and annealing of glass, and its capabilities are expected to bolster the offerings of G&H’s Optical Systems division. The...

Vitrealab, a developer of display technology for VR and AR, has appointed Ronny Timmreck CEO. Timmreck currently serves as chairman of Sixonia Tech GmbH’s board and has prior leadership experience as CEO of companies including Bahama Invest & Consult, leXsolar GmbH, deepXscan, and Senorics.

(From left) Vitrealab CTO Jonas Zeuner, Ronny Timmreck, and chief research officer Chiara Greganti. Courtesy of vitrealab. CAMBRIDGE, England — Quantum entanglement startup Nu Quantum has added Roland Acra to its advisory board. Acra’s career spans over three decades of technology and innovation leadership, mainly focusing on networking and data center technology. He previously served as chief business officer for PsiQuantum...

Samsung Display has developed a quantum dot (QD) ink recycling technology that the company said greatly increases the efficiency of the manufacturing process for its QD-OLED displays. The technology collects and recycles QD ink that would otherwise be wasted during the QD-OLED manufacturing process. The company has shown the process to be able to recover and reprocess 80% of the ink that went unused in the production of the QD emissive layer. Samsung anticipates annual cost savings of over KRW 10 billion ($7.2 million).
Researchers from Samsung Display analyze the optical properties of quantum dot (QD) ink. Courtesy of Samsung Display. The QD light-emitting layer, the key structure of QD-OLED displays, is formed using an inkjet printing...

IPG Photonics has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Clean-Lasersysteme GmbH (cleanLASER), a developer of laser cleaning systems. The transaction is expected to close later this year.

Based in Herzogenrath, Germany, cleanLASER serves a broad range of customers across the automotive, industrial, aerospace, medical, and food markets, among others, offering process-safe laser technology for the cleaning and processing of industrial surfaces. The company, founded in 1997, generates approximately $30 million in annual revenue.

“As a supplier to cleanLASER for nearly 25 years, we know this company well and believe our combined cleaning application know-how, complementary market exposure, and product and technology synergies...

Depth sensing plays a crucial role in various applications, including robotics, augmented reality, and autonomous driving. Monocular passive depth sensing techniques are valued for their cost-effectiveness and compact design which offers an alternative to the expensive and bulky active depth sensors and stereo vision systems. While light-field cameras can address the defocus ambiguity inherent in 2D cameras and achieve unambiguous depth perception, they compromise the spatial resolution and often struggle with the effect of optical aberration.

Researchers led by Hui Qiao of the Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Automation at Tsinghua University have presented a compact meta-imaging camera and an analytical...

Quantum computers promise the ability to solve complex problems in seconds that would take decades for modern supercomputers. While the goal is clear, the path to achieve it remains unclear due to the quantity of potential approaches to realize it. Each one has specific advantages and disadvantages when it comes to hardware and software, ranging from reliability and energy consumption to compatibility with conventional systems.

Under the coordination of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF, a consortium of 28 partners is working on the project "SPINNING — Diamond spin-photon-based quantum computer" to develop a quantum computer based on spin photons and diamond. This should be characterized by lower...

Dementia is difficult to diagnose during the initial stages of the disease. Using current testing methods, it can take over two years for patients to receive a diagnosis. Many patients are not diagnosed until the disease has progressed to a point where treatment options are less likely to be effective. The type of treatment that is most appropriate for a patient depends on the type of dementia the patient has, but distinguishing between closely related dementia types can be challenging.

Researchers at the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton are developing a laser-based test to rapidly detect dementia. If the test is successful, it will help doctors quickly diagnose the condition and specific form of...

A University of Michigan-led team demonstrated an ultrafast, all-optical switch by pulsing circularly polarized light through an optical cavity lined with tungsten diselenide (WSe2), an ultrathin semiconductor.

The device could function as a standard optical switch or could serve as an exclusive OR (XOR) switch, a type of logic gate that produces an output signal when one input signal rotates clockwise and the other input signal rotates counterclockwise.

An all-optical switch would use light to control optical signals without the need for electrical conversion, saving time and energy in fiber optic communications.

“Because a switch is the most elementary building block of any information processing unit, an...

Comptek Solutions, a developer of advanced passivation technology, has installed a new 200 mm wafer pilot line with funding from the European Innovation Council. The line integrates the company’s Kontrox passivation technology with other techniques such as atomic layer deposition for a scalable solution for industrial manufacturing specifically targeting power electronics and optoelectronic applications. The pilot line will also be used to optimize chip performances and optimize yields in semiconductor applications, from sidewall passivation layers for microLEDs to complex gate stack dielectrics for power transistors.

Comptek’s new 200 mm wafer pilot line. Courtesy of Comptek Solutions. BOULDER, Colo. — LongPath...

Up to this point, researchers have been limited in developing photonic memory for AI processing — gaining one important attribute, like speed, has meant sacrificing another, like energy usage. An international team of researchers has demonstrated a solution that addresses current limitations of optical memory that have yet to combine nonvolatility, multibit storage, high switching speed, low switching energy, and high endurance in a single platform.

The team includes researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering; the University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara); the University of Cagliari; and the Tokyo Institute of Technology (now the Institute of Science Tokyo).

“The...