Sensores

The U.S. Department of Commerce has awarded semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries up to $1.5 billion in direct funding through the CHIPS and Science Act to expand its essential chip manufacturing and technology development in the U.S. The funding will support the expansion of GlobalFoundries’ Malta, N.Y., fabrication site; the modernization of its fabrication site in Essex Junction, Vt.; and the construction of a new fabrication site on its Malta Campus. The New York State Green CHIPS Program will contribute an additional $550 million to these projects. In parallel with the award, the company has also partnered with chip developer Lightmatter to mass produce its Passage 3D photonics engine.

DUBLIN — The Innovative...

Lightsynq, a startup developing optical interconnect technology, has raised approximately $18 million in a Series A funding round. Founded by former Harvard quantum networking experts and research leads from Amazon Web Services Center for Quantum Networking, LightSynq is developing optical quantum interconnects that enable hardware providers to link quantum processors.

Lightsynq plans to use the funds to build prototypes of its quantum interconnects which it plans to use to help leading quantum computing companies scale to multimodule systems. Lightsynq’s quantum interconnect technology is based on color centers in diamond photonics devices, combining a leading quantum networking platform with scalable photonic fabrication. The...

LioniX International and the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) will work with Lockheed Martin to develop a novel microwave photonic solution supporting space and defense missions. The collaboration takes place under the REMBRANDT project which develops foundational technologies supporting next-generation communication and sensing through international collaboration.

NLR, LioniX, and Lockheed Martin will work to develop microwave photonic integrated circuit technology to provide significant advantages with respect to bandwidth and reconfigurability compared with traditional microwave technology.
A hybrid PIC assembly which operates as a 4×1 single beam true-time delay receiver at 17-21 GHz. The assembled functional...

As the demand for data storage grows, better ways to encode large amounts of data for rapid transmission are required. One method of transmitting data is to encode the data in laser light and send it through optical fibers.

A new design method from Aalto University provides a way to create light vortices for transmitting data in fiber optic telecommunications with quasicrystals. In theory, this method supports the creation of any type of light vortex.

Previous research has connected vortex type with the symmetry of the structure used to produce the vortex. For example, nanoparticles arranged in a square were found to produce light with a single vortex, while nanoparticles arranged in a hexagon generated a double vortex. More...

Researchers at the University of Ottawa have demonstrated that under certain conditions, a laser beam can act like an opaque object and cast a visible shadow. The finding challenges the traditional understanding of shadows and opens possibilities for technologies that could use a laser beam to control another laser beam.

The team's experimental setup involved shining a green laser beam through a ruby crystal while illuminating it from the side with blue light. This arrangement created a shadow on a surface, visible to the naked eye. The effect occurs due to a phenomenon called reverse saturation of absorption in the ruby crystal, which allows the green laser to block the passage of blue light, resulting in a dark region that follows...

Scintil Photonics, a photonic integrated circuit developer, has appointed Matt Crowley as CEO, replacing company founder Sylvie Menezo who has been appointed CTO. Crowley joins Scintil following his recent role as senior director of business development at Qualcomm. Crowley was also appointed senior strategic advisor of Sheba Microsystems in June.

FARMINGTON, Conn. — TRUMPF Inc. has promoted Claudio Santopietro to head of Smart Factory consulting and automation, Kevin Cuseo to head of software sales, Julian Schorpp to product manager for automated bend products, and Adam Simons to head of additive manufacturing in North America. Previously, Santopietro served as a software sales engineer and software solutions sales manager,...

UAV designer and manufacturer AeroVironment (AV) will acquire fellow U.S.-based defense technology company BlueHalo in an all-stock transaction valued at $4.1 billion. The deal, expected to close in the first half of 2025, brings together complementary capabilities and expands AV’s global footprint, the company said.

With BlueHalo’s portfolio, AV said it will enter into segments that will significantly increase the company’s total addressable market, including counter-uncrewed aircraft systems, directed energy, electronic warfare, and cyber and space technologies. The combined company will benefit from greater resources, enabling faster innovation and more efficient deployment of critical defense systems.

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Exosens has entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire Noxant, a developer of high-performance cooled infrared cameras, with an acquisition expected to be finalized in the coming months. The acquisition would add advanced cooled IR camera cores for OEM partners to Exosens' portfolio, particularly in the MWIR range. Noxant's offering support IR applications in surveillance, scientific research, and industrial testing as well as gas detection.

The proposed acquisition follows Exosens’ recent deals to acquire Night Vision Laser Spain (NVLS) and LR Tech as well as the company’s acquisition of Centronic earlier this year. The company’s prior acquisitions of Telops, Proxivision, El-mul, and Xenics came while Exosens...

The first practical approach to creating photonic time crystals at optical frequencies, developed by an international research team, could lay the groundwork for faster, more compact lasers, sensors, and other optical devices.

The team comprising scientists from Aalto University, the University of Eastern Finland, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and Harbin Engineering University previously demonstrated photonic time crystals at microwave frequencies. However, designing the crystals at optical frequencies has remained a challenge for the researchers, due to the need for a fast, large-amplitude variation of properties in the material platforms for these crystals.

Unlike traditional crystals, which have spatially repeating...

A team at Nanjing University of Science and Technology drew on deep learning techniques to achieve high-resolution, high-speed 3D imaging using conventional, low-speed cameras. The new 3D imaging method shows that slow-scan cameras, which are low in cost and high in spatial resolution, can be used for high-speed 3D imaging tasks and can provide both high spatial and high temporal resolution.

The new 3D imaging approach will allow researchers to capture rapid events as they unfold — a necessity for applications in industrial inspection, biomedical research, and many other fields.

Among 3D imaging modalities, fringe projection profilometry (FPP) is a widely used technique, due to its capacity for non-contact, precise,...

Intravascular optical coherence tomography (IV-OCT) is used to inform doctors about the shape and structure of hardened artery buildups, torn arteries, and blood clots in the heart. While the method is useful for anatomical imaging, researchers believe it can be pushed further to realize its potential to assist in earlier detection and risk assessment of heart conditions.

A new contrast imaging agent, developed at the University of Ottawa and designed specifically for use with IV-OCT, could make it possible to use IV-OCT to identify the initial signs of heart disease and stratify patient risk.

The new contrast agent, named AuSC@(13FS)2, is made of gold superclusters (AuSCs) that work with the IR light used in IV-OCT. The AuSCs...

Several studies have demonstrated that beam shaping in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) can improve the efficiency and productivity of this additive manufacturing process. A collaboration between the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT and RWTH Aachen University has developed an approach to beam shaping to individually optimize LPBF processes. Customized beam profiles improve component quality, reduce material losses and enable previously impossible scaling of the build-up rate of the single beam process.

Fraunhofer ILT and the Chair of Technology of Optical Systems at RWTH Aachen University are working together to create a state-of-the-art test system enabling them to flexibly investigate complex laser beam profiles in power...

The U.S. Department of Commerce signed two separate preliminary memoranda of terms under the CHIPS and Science Act to provide Corning, a specialty glass and ceramics manufacturer, up to $32 million in proposed direct funding, and Powerex, a designer and packager of systems, up to $3 million in proposed direct funding. The funding would allow Corning to increase production of its HPFS Fused Silica and EXTREME ULE Glass for deep UV and extreme UV lithography machines and photomasks. Powerex plans to modernize and expand its production and semiconductor power module packaging facility in Youngwood, Pennsylvania.

The U.S Army’s M1135 Stryker. Courtesy of Tad Browning. BOSTON — Teledyne FLIR Defense has been awarded a...

Photonic supercomputing company Lightmatter has established strategic partnerships with semiconductor packaging and testing companies Amkor Technology and Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE). The collaborations aim to advance Lightmatter’s Passage platform and follow the company's $400 million funding round, announced last month.

The partnership with Amkor involves Lightmatter’s 3D-stacked photonic engine along with Amkor’s advanced multi-die packaging expertise to create a 3D-packaged chip complex to meet the interconnect scaling and power demands of modern AI workloads. The collaboration targets unprecedented silicon density and bandwidth within a single package, paving the way for next-generation computing...

Quantum computing company planqc has been selected to lead a €20 million ($21 million) project to build and deploy a 1000-qubit quantum computer at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) in Germany. The neutral atom-based quantum computer will be integrated into LRZ’s high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure, serving as an accelerator for scientific research and industrial applications.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is funding the development project supporting the planned quantum computer. The Multicore Atomic Quantum Computing System (MAQCS) project specifically aims to install a universally programmable quantum computer that leverages neutral atoms in an innovative multi-core...

X-FAB Silicon Foundries SE, an analog/mixed-signal and specialty foundry, and SMART Photonics, an indium phosphide (InP) integrated photonics foundry, have partnered to integrate X-FAB’s silicon photonics platform with SMART Photonics’ InP chiplets by using micro-transfer printing (MTP) for heterogeneous integration. The collaborators expect the combination to enable new capabilities for datacom and telecom applications.

InP technology supports modulator bandwidths exceeding 120 GHz, making it suitable for next-generation multi-terabit telecom and datacom standards. In contrast, commercially available silicon photonics technologies hit a performance ceiling at around 70 GHz. The newly formed collaboration aims to deliver...

A new approach to guiding and controlling light, based on the process of diffusion, can enhance light transmission by orders of magnitude, even along curved trajectories. The diffusion waveguiding approach could be used in future medical imaging technologies. It could also be adapted to guide heat, instead of light, and to confine particles like neutrons, instead of light waves.

Developed by researchers at the University of Glasgow, in collaboration with the University of Arizona, the new waveguiding mechanism shows that photon density can propagate as a guided mode along a core structure embedded in a scattering, opaque material. It guides the flow of energy by transporting light through a solid core of weakly scattering material...

MKS Instruments has added Wissam Jabre, executive vice president and CFO of Western Digital Corporation, to its board of directors. Jabre previously served as senior vice president and CFO of Dialog Semiconductor from 2016 until it was acquired by Renesas Electronics in August 2021. Prior to that, he held senior finance roles at Advanced Micro Devices, Freescale Semiconductor, and Motorola. He began his career with Schlumberger, where he held engineering and finance roles.

STOCKHOLM — Digital reality solutions company Hexagon AB has appointed Norbert Hanke as interim president and CEO, effective immediately, following the departure of outgoing president and CEO Paolo Guglielmini. Hanke joined Hexagon in 2001, most recently...

SPIE has named finalists for the 2025 Prism Awards. The 24 products — from companies ranging from emerging innovators to industry stalwarts — selected in eight categories, will be honored during a Jan. 29 gala evening at SPIE Photonics West. The annual event, which will be celebrating its 17th year, recognizes commercialized innovation in photonics, honoring companies that are bringing transformative products to market.

The 2025 SPIE Prism Awards will honor companies for breakthrough photonics innovations. The awards, presented in a ceremony at Photonics West, will recognize awardees in eight categories. Courtesy of SPIE. Rapidly developing technology areas such as quantum, sensors, imaging, and biomedical showcase the...

Europe’s Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU), the European public-private partnership that supports research, development, and innovation in semiconductor technologies, is beginning negotiations with the PIXEurope consortium to establish the Advanced Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) Pilot Line for Europe. The pilot line, expected to be established in the Netherlands, will be jointly funded by the European Union, through the Horizon Europe and Digital Europe Programmes, participating states, and private organizations.

PIXEurope's PIC pilot line will bring together Europe’s top research organizations to set up the world’s first open access PIC ecosystem, the Chips JU said in a statement. It will use state-of-the-art...