Daily News Briefs

Newport Corp. has announced a new series of travel awards totaling $10,000 for students presenting papers at the two largest meetings of The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE). These Newport Research Excellence awards are open to any student from a US university who has had a paper accepted for presentation at the SPIE Annual Meeting or Photonics West Symposium. The grants will be awarded annually by SPIE. Recipients will be selected based on both the quality of the original research described in the submitted paper(s) and financial need. Winners will also attend a recognition dinner and be given the opportunity to discuss their research with industry leaders. For more information, visit: www.newport.com/SPIEtravelawards or www.spie.org/students/travel
. . . William P. Moffitt has been named president and CEO of Nanosphere Inc, a Northbrook, Ill., nanotechnology-based life sciences company that make optical molecular detection systems. Moffitt most previously president and CEO of diagnostic device company i-STAT Corp. . . . Riber, a French supplier of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) processing equipment and related services, and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) have joined forces to research nitrogen-containing compound semiconductor materials (nitrides). The organizations have opened a new process technology center at the CNRS-CRHEA (Centre de Recherche sur l'Heteroepitaxie et ses Applications) facility in Valbonne, near Nice, for the development and integration of new growth and characterization processes, including silicon-compatible aN-based HEMTs (high-electron mobility transistors), HFETs (heterojunction field-effect transistors), LEDs and blue laser diodes. Riber is based in Rueil-Malmaison, near Paris.