Daily News Briefs

Christoph Harder, Volker Graf and Eberhard Latta received the IEEE/LEOS 2004 Aron Kressel award, presented at the 17th annual meeting of the IEEE Lasers & Electro-Optics Society (LEOS) this month in Puerto Rico. Harder is director of research and development at Bookham Inc. Graf is a former general manager of Bookham's Zurich pump laser business, and Latta was manufacturing manager of its barfab line in Zurich. Both Graf and Volker are retired from Nortel. The award recognizes their ground-breaking work on laser technology and contributions to high-reliability, high-power telecommunications pump lasers. The first 980-nm pumped wavelength division multiplexing telecommunications link (between Chicago and Sacramento) was powered with these lasers. Their work forms the basis of many products from Bookham, including 980-nm pumps and 808-nm and 9xx-nm bars.