Sensores

RhyGaze, a biotechnology company spun out of the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel, has secured $86 million in Series A funding. The funding will enable further development of RhyGaze's gene therapy for optogenetic vision restoration in diseases causing blindness. Activities to be supported include formal pharmacology and toxicology testing; a noninterventional, observational study to assess potential clinical endpoints in patient groups eligible for the therapy; and a first-in-human clinical trial to test the safety, tolerability, and potential efficacy of the technique.

AVIGNON, France — Hiphen, a remote sensing company for agriculture, has entered into an agreement with computer vision company Aurea...

Quantum technology company IonQ will work with the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) on a $21.1 million project to establish quantum networking capabilities via recently acquired quantum networking company Qubitekk.

The project will support AFRL’s Quantum Information Science and Technology Branch at the Information Directorate and its quantum networking and computing research. Under this effort, IonQ will develop a network with high-performing access points to drive the interoperability of quantum computers and networked devices, deliver networking hardware to expand compatibility with existing telecommunication infrastructure, and collaborate with AFRL to create new capabilities in establishing free-space...

Quantum Brilliance, a developer of room temperature diamond quantum technology, has raised $20 million that the company said will enable it to create a diamond foundry and co-develop quantum sensing prototypes. At the same time, the company said it will use the Series A funding to continue to advance its technology in collaboration with semiconductor partners.

Quantum diamonds have a wide range of potential uses across quantum computing, sensing, and networking. Their compact size, light weight, room temperature functionality, and suitability for mass deployment give quantum diamonds distinct advantages over other quantum technologies in certain use cases. Quantum diamonds are well-suited for large-scale deployment, reliable...

Quantum computers hold tremendous promise, and the potential to solve a range of complex problems which are currently intractable due to the limitations of today’s super-computers. These problems span the fields of quantum chemistry and condensed matter physics — which have direct applications in crucial research areas such as drug discovery and the design of materials for more powerful and efficient batteries.

Early prototypes of quantum computers were brought online in the last decade. The performances of these forerunners invited skeptics to loudly claim that the industry would never reach the levels of performance that we have since come to see in the present.


A developed superconducting architecture uses...

The board of biotechnology company Lumencor has promoted Claudia Jaffe to president and CEO, effective immediately. Jaffe, previously chief commercial officer, founded the company with Steven Jaffe. Steven Jaffe, who preceded Claudia as president and CEO, now serves as chief operating officer, maintaining his focus on engineering and operations.

BEDFORD, Mass. — SpectraWAVE, Inc., a medical imaging company, has appointed Brad Davis as CCO and Bill Kelly as CFO. Davis brings over 24 years of experience in cardiovascular medical devices to the role, having worked for both large and small companies including Guidant, Boston Scientific, and CSI. Kelly joins SpectraWAVE from Vicarious Surgical, where he served as CFO, with prior...

A bioluminescent tag that can be attached to RNA will enable scientists to track RNA in real time as it moves through the human body.

To understand the central role of RNA in cellular processes, scientists must be able to track RNA in vivo. The new platform will allow scientists to observe the dynamics of RNA in numerous biological processes, from virus propagation to memory formation, in real time.

The bioluminescent RNA tag was developed by researchers at the University of California, Irvine. The researchers used luciferase, the enzyme that induces bioluminescence in fireflies, glowworms, jellyfish, and other organisms to make the tags. They engineered the RNA tags to recruit light-emitting luciferase fragments, called RNA...

Hyperspectral imaging leader Headwall Group has acquired EVK DI Kerschhaggl (EVK), an Austria-based technology company specialized in industrial sensor-based sorting and inspection systems. The acquisition will support Headwall's diversification of its product offerings, and bolster its presence in the industrial machine vision market. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Mark Willingham, CEO of Headwall (left), and Matjaz Novak, CEO of EVK. Courtesy of Headwall Group. According to Headwall, the acquisition is expected to broaden its market reach and provide growth opportunities in applications, including food processing, plastics recycling, and material sorting.

Headwall acquired fellow hyperspectral imaging company...

PHOTON IP, a manufacturer of advanced low-power optical chips, has raised €4.75 million ($4.85 million) in seed funding to accelerate the industrialization and commercialization of its technology. PHOTON IP's chip technology combines silicon photonics with active III-V materials and aims to address the limitations that existing schemes for photonic integration face in their inability to deliver necessary levels of performance and energy efficiency in a small footprint.
Founded in 2020, PHOTON IP has developed a method to efficiently combine silicon photonics with active III-V materials. Courtesy of PHOTON IP. The company is specifically targeting manufacturing process simplifications stemming from improving the way that silicon and...

In a step forward for stretchable, wearable technologies, researchers demonstrated a graphene-enabled laser lift-off (GLLO) technique that ensures smooth separation of thin film flexible displays during the manufacturing process. The technique could accelerate development of ultrathin, high-performance devices that fit comfortably against human skin.

The GLLO technique, which was developed at Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech), takes advantage of the optical, thermal, adhesive, and geometrical properties of graphene to prevent damage to ultrathin displays. A graphene layer improves UV light absorption, distributes heat evenly, and reduces adhesion in the thin film. These factors serve to reduce plastic...

Thorlabs has acquired longtime collaborator Praevium Research, a developer of high-speed tunable VCSELs. As a division of Thorlabs, Praevium will continue to operate out of its current location in Calif. under the Praevium Research name, and will retain its current leadership with Christopher Burgner as its general manager and founder Vijay Jayaraman as a senior scientist. The company will additionally maintain its focus on the development of novel semiconductor lasers and detectors in partnership with the Thorlabs team in Jessup, Md.

Praevium Research has collaborated with Thorlabs since joining the Thorlabs Strategic Partner Program in 2008. Over the past 17 years, the companies have partnered on the development and...

Effective treatment of bone defects requires innovative materials that support bone regeneration, are easy to apply, and adapt easily to the defect site. Injectable hydrogels offer a minimally invasive solution, but often lack mechanical integrity and biological functionality. Traditional methods that combine bone grafts with adhesive materials often fail to achieve simultaneous bone regeneration and adhesion.

To help advance bone tissue engineering, a research team at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) developed an injectable, adhesive hydrogel that achieves photocrosslinking and mineralization simultaneously, without the need for bone grafts, when it is irradiated with light that is safe for the human body.

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Research hub imec has demonstrated the monolithic fabrication of electrically-driven gallium arsenide (GaAs)-based multi-quantum-well nano-ridge laser diodes on 300mm silicon wafers in its CMOS pilot prototyping line. Achieving room-temperature continuous-wave lasing with threshold currents as low as 5 mA and output powers exceeding 1 mW, the results demonstrate the potential of direct epitaxial growth of high-quality III-V materials on silicon.

According to imec, the work provides a pathway to the development of cost-effective, high-performance optical devices for applications in data communications, machine learning, and AI.

The lack of highly scalable, native CMOS-integrated light sources has been a major roadblock for the...

Ansys has entered into a definitive agreement for the sale of its PowerArtist business to Keysight Technologies, Inc., a developer of design and simulation software for semiconductors. PowerArtist is a comprehensive register-transfer level design-for-power platform used by semiconductor companies for early-stage power analysis, profiling, and reduction. Ansys and Synopsys determined that the sale of PowerArtist was necessary to obtain regulatory approval for Synopsys' proposed acquisition of Ansys, which is pending regulatory approvals and expected to close in the first half of 2025. Ansys entered into an agreement with Synopsys for its acquisition in January 2024 in a deal worth $35 billion.

VISTA, Calif. — Anatomic and digital...

The Consumer Electronics Show, the flagship event of the Consumer Technology Association, opened its doors Tuesday. The annual show, which showcases the latest innovations and developments in consumer technology, concludes today. Photonics Media has tracked this year’s product demonstrations, partnerships, and photonics industry news.

Aledia, a company specialized in 3D nanowire-based micro-LED technology, unveiled a $200 million state-of-the-art production line in Grenoble, France. The line utilizes semiconductor-grade silicon in 8-inch and 12-inch formats, lowering production costs for large-scale production of micro-LEDs. The company stated that it can support customer demand ramp up to nearly 5000 wafer starts per week.
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SPIE’s Awards Committee has named the recipients of its annual awards, recognizing achievements in photonics research, education, industry, and community leadership. The awards span a broad range of technical and professional areas, including medicine, astronomy, lithography, optical metrology, optical design, and community leadership.
2025 SPIE Gold Medal recipient Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop. Courtesy of SPIE.
Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop is the recipient of the 2025 SPIE Gold Medal for innovations in the transfer of optical angular momentum to matter, using sculpted light for laser manipulation on atomic, nano- and microscales, and providing a powerful probe to biomedicine.

The SPIE President’s Award was given to...