Sensores

Robert Franz has been appointed CEO of machine vision company SVS-Vistek. Franz also serves as group CEO for the German 2D vision companies within the TKH Group, which includes SVS-Vistek. He was appointed CEO of Allied Vision last year.
Robert Franz now serves as CEO of SVS-Vistek, in addition to his role of group CEO of the German 2D vision companies within the TKH Group. Franz also serves as Allied Vision’s CEO. Courtesy of SVS-Vistek. In the new role, Franz will aim to optimize the collaboration of the TKH 2D Vision companies, including industry leaders Allied Vision, Chromasens, Euresys, NET, and SVS-Vistek. Sales activities under the leadership of Björn Krasemann, CCO and chief sales officer for SVS-Vistek and Allied...

Laser technology startup Enlightra has collaborated with DESY Hamburg to develop comb lasers that are more stable and efficient by design. The work demonstrated microresonators with programmable synthetic reflection, providing tailored injection feedback to the driving laser. The technology is a marked improvement compared to conventional self-injection locking, and can be produced using standard lithographic production.

Comb lasers are sources of multiple colors with equidistant spacing ranging from 100 GHz to 1 THz. The technology is highly valuable for optical communications to achieve the data necessary of AI applications.
The key components of Enlightra's laser comb. A conventional distributed feedback laser (left)....

Abnormalities in white blood cell count are indicative of a blood disorder. Measuring these abnormalities is imperative. However, the use of flow cytometry and other conventional methods to assess white blood cell concentration is confined to hospital and laboratory settings due to the bulkiness and complexity of the equipment.

Access to such equipment in remote areas presents challenges concerning early diagnosis for patients. Portable blood cell analyzers could alleviate these challenges and enable an earlier start on treatment.

Researchers at Harbin Institute of Technology, Peking University, and the Beijing Institute of Collaborative Innovation developed a Smart Palm-sized Optofluidic Hematology Analyzer for automated,...

LaCroix Precision Optics has added optical assembly and design departments in a move that the company said solidifies its status as a vertically integrated optics firm. According to LaCroix president Kirk Warden, the added capabilities enable LaCroix to be involved from the system and product design through the assembly phase, reducing the time that it takes to move a product to market.

LaCroix specializes in manufacturing precision optics, including spherical lenses, aspheres, achromats, windows, wedges, prisms, and custom optical coatings.

Precision metrology company Menlo Systems Inc. has added Jens Schumacher as its general manager. Schumacher has more than 20 years of experience in the photonics industry, including as engineering director of Coherent Inc. and program manager of Thorlabs. Jens Schumacher (left) and Menlo cofounder and managing director Michael Mei. Courtesy of Menlo Systems.
FELDKIRCHEN, Germany — Nanotec, a manufacturer of motors and controllers for industrial automation, has stated that CEO Stephan Huber and CTO Christian Hainzlmaier will lead the company together with CFO Elke Zec and CSO Durmus Özcan. Company founder Benno Wimmer has stepped down from his operational role. Zec has served as business controller since 2015 and was appointed...

Micro-LED technology developer Porotech has partnered with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (PSMC) for the mass production of micro-LEDs on 200-mm gallium nitride (GaN)-on-silicon for consumer display applications. The partnership comes after Porotech partnered with Foxconn to accelerate its research and production of micro-LED technology last month.

Porotech’s "PoroGaN" microdisplay platform enables full-color or tunable color displays using identical pixels from a single wafer to achieve color uniformity while eliminating complex fabrication processes. The company unveiled its Dynamic Pixel Tuning technology during 2022’s Display Week. The technology has earned Porotech a nomination for a 2024...

Headwall Photonics has acquired inno-spec GmbH, a fellow manufacturer of industrial hyperspectral imaging systems. According to Headwall, the acquisition will lead to the development of more advanced, efficient, and versatile hyperspectral imaging systems by combining Headwall’s portfolio of optical components and remote sensing technologies with inno-spec’s specialized knowledge in industrial applications.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition aims to further strengthen Headwall’s offerings and extend its global reach — particularly in the industrial machine vision sector, Headwall CEO Mark Willingham said. inno-spec's systems are used in high-volume recycling, industrial sorting, and...

Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a 10-cm-diameter glass metalens that can image the sun, the moon, and distant nebulae with high resolution. It is the first all-glass, large-scale metalens in the visible wavelength that can be mass produced using conventional CMOS fabrication technology.

“The ability to accurately control the size of tens of billions of nanopillars over an unprecedentedly large flat lens using state-of-the-art semiconductor foundry processes is a nanofabrication feat that opens exciting new opportunities for space science and technology,” said Federico Capasso, the Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes...

A neural implant developed at the University of California San Diego could help advance the path to minimally invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. The implant provides high-resolution data about deep neural activity by recording at the brain’s surface.

Built by a team led by professor Duygu Kuzum, the implant consists of a thin, transparent, flexible polymer strip that conforms to the brain’s surface. The strip is embedded with high-density arrays of graphene microelectrodes that enable up to 256 channels.

The graphene microelectrodes have ultrasmall openings and large, transparent recording areas. The diameter of the microelectrodes is scaled down to 20 μm. Each electrode in the implant is...

LioniX International, a designer and manufacturer of silicon nitride PICs, has appointed Ronald Dekker CTO. Dekker previously led the company’s Module and Assembly group, following the 2016 merger of LioniX BV, XiO Photonics BV, and SatraX BV. He previously served as CTO of XiO Photonics.
Ronald Dekker. Courtesy of LioniX International. Dekker succeeds founding CTO René Heideman, who now serves as a strategic business developer for the company. Dekker’s previous experience also includes a stint as senior researcher at the University of Twente, working in integrated optics.

Single-cell RNA sequencing enables scientists to interrogate cells at extraordinary resolution and scale. However, the sequencing process destroys the cell, making it difficult to use the technique to study ongoing changes in gene expression.

Raman microscopy measures the vibrational energy levels of proteins and metabolites in a nondestructive manner at subcellular spatial resolution, but it is unable to interpret genetic information.

“RNA sequencing gives you extremely detailed information, but it’s destructive,” researcher Koseki Kobayashi-Kirschvink said. “Raman is noninvasive, but it doesn’t tell you anything about RNA.”

A new technique developed at MIT combines the advantages of...

QDI Systems, a developer of imaging devices for medical applications, has secured €5 million ($5.4 million) in series A funding. The company, a 2019 spinoff of the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials at the University of Groningen, will use the funds to commercialize its quantum dot-based imaging technology and to pursue SWIR-based technology. The funding also includes an innovation loan of €1.97 million ($2.1 million) from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. The funding round was led by the Investment and Development Agency for the Northern Netherlands and joined by previous investors Carduso Capital, RuG Ventures, and Nordic venture capital fund Maki.vc.

FREMONT, Calif. — Optical components manufacturer Enablence...

Kopin Corporation has unveiled plans to transition its business to focus on becoming an application-specific optical solutions provider. The company said it will additionally target advanced software-defined AI-enabled microdisplay technology, as it moves from its position as what it called a microdisplay solutions provider.

Kopin's offerings are developed for the defense, enterprise, consumer, and medical products markets. The company has introduced a new logo, tagline, and website as part of the brand’s revamp.

In tandem with the new corporate direction, this week the company introduced its NeuralDisplay architecture developed in collaboration with MIT's Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Designed...

Dutch quantum computing company QphoX has raised an €8 million ($8.7 million) funding round. The investment is reportedly the largest made in a quantum company in the Netherlands to date. QPhox is developing the core hardware required to allow quantum computers to communicate over an optical network. This will enable the scalability of large quantum computing systems within a data center, and ultimately form the backbone of the future quantum internet.

Since raising €2 million ($2.2 million) in 2021, QphoX has made significant advances in its technology, including recent developments that bring mature quantum computers within reach. QphoX's core technology centers on the ability to build devices that enable quantum...

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has published an implementation agreement (IA) for Common Electrical I/O (CEI) CEI-112G-XSR+-PAM4 Extended Extra Short Reach. According to Alphawave Semi's Matt Brown, who served as editor of the CEI-112G-XSR+-PAM4 IA, the agreement addresses a gap in OIF CEI specifications to cover new applications identified by OIF’s membership.

The agreement specifies a 112 Gb/s PAM4 electrical interface for die-to-die (D2D) and die-to-optical-engine (D2OE) interconnect with bump-to-bump insertion loss of up to 13 dB at the Nyquist frequency and baud rate in the range 36 to 58 Gsym/s. The intended applications encompass multiple-chip modules, co-packaged optics, and near-package optics assemblies. It...

Honeywell has closed a $300 million equity fundraising for integrated quantum computing company Quantinuum. The round closed at a pre-money valuation of $5 billion. Honeywell said that the financing is anchored by Quantinuum's strategic partner, JPMorgan Chase, with additional participation from Mitsui & Co., Amgen, and Honeywell itself, which remains the company's majority shareholder.

Quantinuum's technologies are used today by companies including Airbus, BMW Group, Honeywell, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Mitsui, and Thales. In collaboration, these organizations are exploring how to engineer and scale quantum capabilities to help solve problems — from designing and manufacturing hydrogen cell batteries for transportation to...

Technologies like integrated signal distributing, processing, and sensing networks require basic optical elements such as waveguides, splitters, gratings, and optical switches to be miniaturized. This poses challenges, especially for curved elements such as bends and ring resonators, which require an especially high resolution and lower sidewall roughness.

There are a number of methods to achieve subwavelength high-resolution manufacturing, though they tend to be costly, complex, and time-consuming. Nanoimprint lithography is promising as an approach to efficient high-resolution manufacturing, but it requires high-quality master stamps often produced with electron beam lithography.
An illustration of the UV-LED-based microscope...

With massive numbers of data points requiring real-time processing every day, limitations of cloud computing, including leaks, communications delays, slow speeds, and higher power consumption need to be addressed. Edge computing, which distributes computations to reduce load and speed processing, presents an alternative.

However, for effective edge computing, efficient and computationally cost-effective technology is needed. One promising option is reservoir computing, a computational method designed for processing signals that are recorded over time. It can transform these signals into complex patterns using reservoirs that respond nonlinearly to them.
The device consists of an Sn-doped In2O3 and Nb-doped SrTiO3 (ITO/Nb:STO; GND:...

Lynred, a provider of infrared detectors, has appointed Hervé Bouaziz as executive president and Xavier Caillouet as CEO. Bouaziz has 30 years’ aerospace, defense, and security experience and previously served as CEO for Europrop International and held several executive positions at Safran. Caillouet comes to Lynred following a 30-year career in international roles within various Thales divisions, including vice president of radiology at Thales and CEO of Trixell.

Ganesh Moorthy. Courtesy of Ayar. SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Ayar has added Ganesh Moorthy and Craig Barratt to its board of directors and Vladimir Stojanovic as its CTO. Moorthy currently serves as the president and CEO of Microchip Technology Inc. and is on...

Software technology company Synopsys has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ansys for approximately $35 billion. The acquisition adds Ansys’ broad simulation and analysis portfolio to Synopsys’s design automation technology. Both companies are active in the development of software for optical imaging, illumination, and automotive lighting design, among other applications.

Through the acquisition, Synopsys’ total addressable market is expected to increase by 1.5× to approximately $28 billion.

Ansys, a developer of end-to-end multiphysics and multiscale simulation platforms for optical technologies, has collaborated with Synopsys since 2017. Ansys' software tools allow designers to expedite...