Record attendance: over 16,000

Great attendance and a strong showing by Cluster Members combined to make this year's Photonics West Conference (January 24 - 26) a success for New York Companies.

Since 2003 attendance at the premier U.S. conference for the optics industry has increased at a steady rate, from 13,200 in 2003 to 16,100 in 2006, with international attendance strong from Europe and Asia.

New York Photonics and RRPC are working with members to insure greater visibility and New York representation at next year's conference. Be sure to have your company representative inform SPIE that you wnt to be part of next year's New York Neighborhood.

Exhibiting at PW06 under their new name was Qioptiq Imaging Solutions.

Seven Thales High Tech Optics companies (including Rochester's Thales Optem Inc.) are now officially separated from Thales, and have officially formed their own private group, wholly owned by Candover Investments plc (London). The name of this new optics group is Qioptiq (pronounced 'key-optic').

"The acquisition by Candover positions us favorably as the main US presence within the Qioptiq group." Stated Qioptiq Imaging Solutions President and CEO, José Suro. "We look forward with great enthusiasm to the aggressive growth potential and synergistic strength that this acquisition poses for ourselves and our six sister companies."

Qioptiq Imaging Solutions specializes in the design, development and manufacture of advanced optical systems and custom optical solutions for machine vision, inspection and research applications in the semiconductor, high-tech manufacturing, life science and educational markets. More detail here.

Also exhibiting at PW06, was Melles Griot. Following the consolidation of their California operation to Rochester in 2004, the firm made substantial investment in new coating facilities. Melles recently announced that they will make their [Rochester-based] world-class thin-film coating capability available to customers who need optical coating services for their own substrates. Through utilization of the company's coating design expertise and multiple coating chambers, including the state-of-the-art Leybold SYRUSpro 1100, Melles Griot now offers rapid development and production of precise thin-film coatings.

According to Dr. Bruce Capron, director of sales and marketing of the Melles Griot Optics Group, "Our customers expect us to expand and optimize our ability to provide high-performance transmissive, reflective, and polarizing multilayer coatings for their optics. Consequently, we invest in the latest coating equipment, analytical instrumentation, and clean facilities." Melles Griot continually monitors the developments in the laser, fast optics, and deep UV (DUV) technologies and designs coatings to meet or exceed the evolving requirements of these dynamic markets.

Melles Griot designs, manufactures, and distributes devices that create, control, and measure light, as well as products that hold or position photonics devices. The company provides standard and custom solutions to industrial and scientific researchers and original equipment manufacturers. With manufacturing and distribution activities in 41 countries, industries served include biotechnology, metrology, semiconductor equipment, and general research. Melles Griot is a Barloworld Scientific Company.

Contact Melles Griot Rochester at (585) 244-7220

University Technology Showcase
HYATT Regency Rochester
February 8th 2006
 
The Center for Electronic Imaging Systems (CEIS) announces its annual forum to showcase current university research. You are invited to come and browse from two tracks of technical mini-presentations and to interact with faculty researchers from the University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Cornell University.
 
New this year will be a third track of mini-presentations by local industry leaders for university researchers. Some of the most innovative technology research at UR, RIT and Cornell today involves collaborative projects with industry.
 
In collaborative research arrangements, researchers and industry jointly sponsor a project. Costs, personnel, facilities, equipment, or research capabilities may be shared for mutual benefit. This provides industry with an excellent way to leverage their research activities and to partner with university researchers to obtain local and federal funding.
 
The showcase is free to members of local industry, and runs from 2:30 to 6:00 p.m.at the  HYATT Regency Rochester, 125 East Main Street, on February 8, 2005.
 
Refreshments and opportunities for networking will be provided. Contact CEIS at (585) 273-2642

11 - 16 February 2006
Medical Imaging
San Jose, CA

February 15th, Golisano Building at RIT

Our featured speaker is Bob Breault, CEO of Breault Research Corporation and co-Chairman of the Arizona Optics Industry Association. Bob has been invited to discuss global business opportunities for Industry Clusters; new applications in Optics and Photonics, Workforce issues, and successful Cluster strategies for pursuing government contracts.

We are also pleased to announce that Mayor Bob Duffy, who recently embarked on his first term as Rochester Mayor, will be in attendance and has agreed to address RRPC members and their guests prior to Bob Breault. County Executive Maggie Brooks will be represented by Theresa Mazzullo, Chairman of the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency (COMIDA), and Chief Operating Officer of Excel Partners.

Contact the Rivers Organization to register at (585) 586-6906.

For a map of the RIT campus, go here.

New York Photonics Member, Spectrum Thin Films
Designed for extreme uniformity and high capacity, Spectrum Thin Films' IBS sputtering process uses a Dual Ion Beam Deposition system equipped with fully automated, state of the art, software control. It is equipped with two RF powered ion sources and three target materials allowing the production of the most complex of coatings.

Film deposition is achieved using the 16cm diameter RF ion source. This source is highly energetic and therefore generates films with excellent adhesion and high packing density. The 12cm diameter RF assist source is focused on the substrate and primarily serves to correct film stoichiometry and alleviate stress. Together these two sources operate in unison to produce films with optimal optical and physical properties.

Rough surfaces typically indicate a higher degree of columnar growth and growth nuclei. Smooth surfaces tend to have a characteristic dense microstructure and low defect density. Ion Beam Sputtering produces extremely smooth films as compared to electron beam deposition and/or ion assist.

Due to the high energy of sputtered atoms, Ion Beam Sputtered films have a high density very similar to the bulk density of the target materials used. This high density is consistently reproducible run to run. An Important feature of an optical coating is its surface quality. The quality of the surface determines the performance of the optical device itself. High quality optical coatings start with a smooth super-polished optical substrate with roughness typically In the order of 0.05 nm rms. A conventionally deposited film will add roughness to the surface of the optical substrate, the degree of the roughness dependant upon the technique used. For example a film deposited by evaporative techniques produces a surface roughness of 1 nm rms typical, while ion assisted deposition techniques produce a surface roughness of 0.4 nm rms typical. Ion beam sputter deposition adds very little or no roughness of its own, producing films with a surface roughness equal to that of the super-polished substrate, 0.05 nm rms.

Contact Tony Pirera, President: (631) 589-3502

ITT reported a fourth quarter 2005 net loss of $84.0 million or $0.91 per share, including the impact of special items of $218.6 million or $2.34 per share, primarily related to a previously announced non-cash asset impairment charge in the company's switches business.

The Space Systems Division, however, headquartered in Rochester, is part of ITT's Defense Electronics & Services segment. That unit reported fourth quarter revenues of $862.3 million, up 16 percent, with full year revenues of $3.22 billion, up 34 percent. Good news overall for the health and prognosis of the local unit.

Sources suggest that repercussions from Boeing's loss of a major satellite contract impacted ITT's revenue flow in 2005-2006 to such a degree that the company may announce Rochester layoffs of as many as 5 - 10% of the local workforce. On a growth curve since purchased from Eastman Kodak in 2004, the firm hired around 400 in Rochester during the past year.