Collaborations

To advance its silicon photonics production, Mosis, an integrated circuit fabrication service in Marina del Rey, Calif., has partnered with research institutes imec of Louvain, Belgium, and Tyndall National Institute in Ireland and with the European Union consortium European Silicon Photonics Platform (ePIXfab). “With this collaboration, Mosis will offer its first access to a mature silicon photonics infrastructure, with the option for follow-on production,” said Mosis director Wes Hansford. Under the agreement, Mosis customers will have access to imec’s design kit of integrated silicon photonics processes – including low-loss waveguides, grating couplers, silicon electro-optic modulators and germanium waveguide photodetectors – and to Tyndall’s advanced silicon photonics packaging technology.

As part of an official tour of Saxony, (from left) Stanislaw Tillich, prime minister of Saxony, and Joachim Gauck, president of Germany, visited the Technical University of Dresden and met with founders of Novaled AG, a developer of OLEDs for displays and lighting. The founders, Dr. Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth, professor Karl Leo and Dr. Martin Pfeiffer, won the 2011 president’s award for technology and innovation – the Deutscher Zukunftspreis (German Future Prize) for their research on organic semiconductors and the commercialization of their findings.

Open Photonics Inc. (OPI) of Orlando, Fla., has partnered with Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., to research emerging photonics-related technologies and innovations related to Lockheed’s electro-optics products. OPI recently introduced the Photonic Horizons program to accelerate early-stage product development, innovation and R&D for global companies that seek photonics-based solutions as part of their strategy and product road map. The grant program is backed by a technical and business advisory board. “Our new model matches these inventors with potential customers in multiple industries, strengthening innovation pipelines for these companies and providing a framework for these companies to engage researchers in smaller companies and universities,” said CEO Dr. Jason Eichenholz.

Femtosecond photonic crystal fiber beam transport.

In California, Applied Spectral Imaging Inc. (ASI) of Carlsbad, and WaveSense Inc. of Irvine, have partnered to market ASI’s GenASIs imaging and analysis instrument and WaveSense’s EpiSEP cell recovery and enrichment solution. When combined, the platforms can perform semiautomated fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of paramagnetic-labeled target cells, and are suitable for molecular pathology and cytogenetics applications. “Personalized medicine challenges laboratories to continuously evolve and expand their molecular pathology applications rapidly and cost-effectively,” said WaveSense CEO Chris Feistel. “WaveSense and ASI platforms provide a straightforward, versatile environment for optimizing existing applications or implementing new applications.”

Luxembourg-based Element Six, working with Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, entangled quantum bits, or qubits, in two synthetic diamonds separated in space – a step toward enabling new, quantum-based networks and computers. The diamonds of millimeter size were grown by the company and engineered to contain a defect that can be manipulated using light and microwaves. The company said the findings demonstrate its ability to control a single atomlike defect in the diamond lattice at the parts-per-trillion level, and that it is the first time that qubits in two separated diamonds have been entangled and subsequently shown to behave as a single particle.

Engineered by Element Six, two synthetic diamonds achieved quantum entanglement.