Laser beam measurement products supplier Gentec Electro-Optics Inc. of Quebec City has opened a laser calibration center in Japan. The Tokyo facility will offer calibration services to the entire Asia market, including China, South Korea and Southeast Asia, and joins Gentec’s existing centers in Quebec and Munich. Photo courtesy of Gentec Electro-Optics Snake Creek Lasers LLC has moved its office and manufacturing operations 20 miles west of its previous location. The new facility in Friendsville, Pa., is more modern, providing a more energy-efficient manufacturing environment, said founder and President Dr. David Brown. The company manufactures diode-pumped solid-state lasers and laser modules for biomedical, laser projector and aiming applications. Photo courtesy of Snake Creek Lasers LLC. Kollmorgen of Radford, Va., has named National Instruments of Austin, Texas, a global reseller of its motion control products. Through the distribution agreement, OEMs and end users will have access to Kollmorgen’s complete line of machine control solutions, which can be programmed graphically using National Instruments’ LabView system design software. The companies previously partnered to launch Kollmorgen’s AKD servo drive, which included the LabView software for simplified drive installation and increased performance. LPKF Laser & Electronics AG of Garbsen, Germany, has purchased a production facility in Fürth for about €14 million (about $18.5 million) to support the expansion of its laser plastic welding department, which has grown to more than 100 employees over the past 12 years. The 10,000-sq-m building will provide 2.5 times more space than the company’s current location. Production will begin in August; final relocation of all employees will be completed in 2014. Night-vision-sensor provider Photonis Technologies of Merignac, France, has formed a digital low-light imaging unit in Frisco, Texas. The new division, Photonis Digital Imaging, will support the company’s recently introduced series of digital sensors and cameras for low-light applications including security, surveillance and unmanned systems. It will be part of Photonis USA and managed under Gregory W. Bell, president and CEO of the US divisions. PI (Physik Instrumente) has added a building to its factory in Karlsruhe, Germany, providing more production floors, metrology labs and R&D office space. The high-load hexapod production and test facility adds about 4500 sq ft of space dedicated to the manufacture and test of heavy-duty six-axis motion systems capable of moving loads of up to 5 tons with submicron precision. PI’s hexapod systems are used for optics alignment, medical tumor treatment, high-energy physics, and aerospace and semiconductor manufacturing. Photo courtesy of PI (Physik Instrumente). Photonic integrated circuit manufacturer NeoPhotonics Corp. of San Jose, Calif., has shipped its first optical transceiver modules from its new high-capacity factory in China. The new factory, located in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, has about 80,000 sq ft of production space, including approximately 50,000 sq ft of cleanroom area. The facility was designed for optical subassembly fabrication as well as final module assembly and test. Photo courtesy of NeoPhotonics Corp. Toshiba America Electronics Components Inc. has relocated its corporate headquarters in Irvine, Calif., to a larger, 445,410-sq-ft facility that joins the company with five other Toshiba America Inc. subsidiaries and accommodates its day-to-day business and marketing activities. The Toshiba-owned building includes a training center and product demonstration facility. Photo courtesy of Toshiba America Electronics Components Inc. Luxembourg-based Element Six, a member of the De Beers Group of Companies, has expanded its global manufacturing capabilities for microwave chemical vapor deposition (CVD) synthetic diamond by 60 percent over last year. Driven by growth in its semiconductor and optical business segments, it has increased production capacity at its facilities in Silicon Valley, Calif., and Ascot, England, to meet the demand for thermal management solutions, including gallium nitride-on-diamond substrates and high-power-resistant optical windows for extreme UV lithography systems. The company also has opened a state-of-the-art Global Innovation Centre in Harwell, England, to design, manufacture and test market-ready solutions in one location. Boulder, Colo.-based REO has named Newport Corp. of Irvine, Calif., the exclusive global sales partner for its range of HeNe lasers. Under the terms of the agreement, Newport will inventory all of REO’s HeNe products, including red, green, yellow, IR and single-frequency stabilized lasers operating at 633 nm, and will handle all sales and technical support for new customers through its global sales team. HeNe lasers are employed in a wide range of applications in bioinstrumentation, spectroscopy, interferometry, inspection, metrology, particle measurement, holography and general research. FireWire and GigE machine vision camera maker Allied Vision Technologies (AVT) has enlarged its Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, office. The 1200 sq ft of added space will accommodate the company’s expanding R&D team. AVT expects to swell its ranks in Canada from the current 40 to more than 50 employees by the end of 2013; it also has two R&D centers in Germany. Photo courtesy of AVT.