Small and Start-up Companies Targeted with Resource Opportunity

New York Photonics member, the Cornell Center for Materials Research has announced that three NYSTAR Centers for Advanced Technology (CATs) -- The Integrated Electronics Engineering Center, Binghamton University; the Center for Future Energy Systems, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI); and the Cornell Center for Life Science Enterprise -- will participate with the Cornell Center for Materials Research in the Fall 2006 JumpStart program.  

JumpStart brings together industrial partners and University researchers to address an immediate capital need while building a foundation for a long-term relationship. Funded by the New York State Office for Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR), the program supports small business development in the state by providing $1 for every $2 of company expenses for projects of up to $15,000 in value. Project funding covers resources such as faculty, research staff, facilities services, and materials.  Recipients will be selected in August for 2006 Fall Semester projects.

Applications will be accepted through July 21, 2006, via the CCMR website. The four university centers will accept proposals according to their research interests and capabilities. Each center will administer an independent proposal selection process handled by a diverse board of economic development professionals, university faculty and outreach leaders. Projects will be selected according to their alignment with the resources and capabilities of the participating centers.

Vertical Integration at Polymer Optics Mainstay

G-S PLASTIC OPTICS announced the completion of its most recent plant expansion through the establishment of an in-house coating facility. In April, the company integrated a precision optical coating system, built by Vacuum Process Technology, Inc. (VPT). This new coating capability positions G-SPO in the forefront for coating technology specific to polymer substrates.

Will Beich, Director of New Business Development for G-S said, “This is an essential component of our on-going facility expansion. We continue to vertically integrate key functions into our operation. Many of the optics that we mold require reflection coatings, such as gold, silver or aluminum or an anti-reflective coating. By bringing this capability on site, we will be able to improve our operational efficiency and offer our customers greater flexibility and responsiveness to their production demands.” G-SPO will focus on providing state-of-the-art vacuum deposited coatings on polymer substrates such as PMMA, Styrene, Polycarbonate, Zeonex, Zeonor, and Topas.

The coater is a fully automated CITATION ITM precision optical box coater that includes E-Beam and resistive evaporation with Plasma Ion Assist to form low stress, dense and durable coatings that will satisfy the most demanding thin-film requirements of polymer optics. Coating processes will include protected and enhanced Gold, protected and enhanced Aluminum, protected Silver, and anti-reflection (AR) coatings such as single layers, v-coats and multilayers for broadband AR performance. G-SPO will have complete in-house film design capabilities in order to tailor thin-film performance to meet specific customer requirements. The chamber configuration will also include unique, flexible rotation systems to accommodate the many complex shapes that are increasingly prevalent in plastic optics design.

The facility is complete with in-house metrology including reflection and transmission measurement capability on both Perkin-Elmer Lambda 650 and Lambda 10 UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometers and other proprietary film characterization resources.

G-S PLASTIC OPTICS provides precision polymer optics for use in imaging, scanning, and detection applications to a worldwide market. The company manufactures in Rochester, NY, USA and offers design, diamond turned and molded prototypes, production molding, thin film coatings, and integrated optical solutions to meet a wide range of military, medical, commercial, and consumer applications. G-S PLASTIC OPTICS is a Germanow-Simon Company, established in 1916.

AGI To Bring GfE Processes to Precision Optics Industry in North America

GfE Coating Materials and Advanced Glass Industries are joining efforts to bring GfE Coating Materials' alloy and ceramic consumable products to the Precision Optics Industry of North America. Located in Nuremberg, Germany, GfE Metalle & Materialien GmbH is a multi-million dollar company emplying 250 people, serving international PVD thin film markets. GfE materials are used in the Precision Optics industry by such customers as SpectraPhysics, Sagem and Thales.

GfE Coating Materials was created in 1985 as an R&D effort within GfE. Coating Materials has since emerged as a major international provider of metallic and ceramic materials for PVD coating processes. GfE has more than 14 separate manufacturing processes which can be used to produce a results for their customers. They continue to develop new target and evaporation materials for all segments of the PVD coating industry including wear and decorative, electronic, solar, optical, energy storage, web and large area applications.

A core competency of GfE Coating Materials is R&D for new materials and manufacturing processes. For example, the company developed a special process for the production of "shaped sources" used in electron-beam evaporation deposition of oxide coating materials. Compared top granules or tablets, the shaped sources offer several advantages including higher material yield and reduction of coating deposition time.

Contact Henry Louis at AGI: (585) 458-8040 ; hank[at]advancedglass.net

Job Fair In the Works While Companies Await Training Dollars

RRPC members learned in June that anticipated funding for workforce training under the WIRED Inititiative is still unavailable. This was a disappointment to several firms that had planned to use funds from the initiative to send incumbent workers to MCC's Summer Optics Program.

Later in June Rick Plympton and Rich Bergen from Optimax met with representatives from the Finger Lakes Workforce Investment Board and MCC to discuss alternatives. It was agreed a job fair might be a big help in attracting candidates, and a plan was roughed out.

Interested companies (if your company has a person responsible for HR, forward them this newsletter) contact James Winston, MCC 585-262-1401, jwinston[at]monroecc.edu -- or Karen Springmeier, Finger Lakes Workforce Investment Board (315) 789-3131, flwibks[at]rochester.rr.com.

Other funds are available through RochesterWorks! Go here for the article in last month's newsletter.

New York Cluster Hits Size Limits at Photonics West

Not all New York exhibitors at Photonics West indicate when registering that they want a booth in the New York Neighborhood. Some feel that the seniority they have in choosing their own location is more advantageous to them than co-locating with the New York Cluster. Some have both seniority and the need for island space, apparently not easy for SPIE to allocate in conjunction with aisle space.

New members join the New York Cluster knowing that we work hard to maximize space at what has turned out to be the largest "general topic" conference for our industry in North America. Co-locating works well for those that do it in cross-referrals, introductions, and just plain energy.

This year SPIE has made an effort to accomodate what is clearly, by a signiifcant percentage, the largest industry cluster in attendance at the show: New York's. Still they have come up short with the number of booths needed in the main hall.

As this newsletter goes to publication, the participating New York Companies with the greatest seniority are still in discussion with SPIE as to how we will manage the New York Neighborhood at the conference in January 2007.

Annual Tournament Benefits Golisano Children's Hospital

July 20 is almost upon us! The 6th Annual WNY Optics / Photonics Golf Tournament will bring together over 130 optics professionals from as far away as Florida, New Jersey and Massachussetts for golf and dinner in a beautiful upstate New York venue.

Shadow Lake Golf Course is completely filled at this point, but there are still a few openings at Shadow Pines as this newsletter rolls out.

Hole Sponsorships may also still be available, but major sponsors will need to submit forms this week in order to get their names on promotional materials for the 20th. Sponsorships and Registration can be found here. A list of sponsors from last year's tournament can be found here.

A Savings for Rochester Regional Companies

Is your company buying equipment and creating jobs? If you are located within Monroe County you may be eligible for assistance from Monroe County Economic Development.

Monroe County's equipment assistance programs include a subsidy on your interest charges: the GREATRATE Interest Subsidy, or a rebate on cash purchases: the GREATREBATE program. When coupled with the EQUIPLUS program, the purchase may be exempt from sales tax as well.

Here's how it works. Look at an example of a company that is purchasing taxable equipment from a local dealer. The purchase price is $75,000. The company currently employs 10, and expects to create 3 new jobs over the next 2 years.

For more about these programs contact Judy Seil, Monroe County Economic Development Manager, at 753-2000, or jseil[at]monroecounty.gov.

End-game: Flexible, High Efficiency Solar Cells

Announced at the June 26, Renewable Energy Expo 2006, Wakonda Technologies will develop high efficiency, flexible solar cells under separate Small Business Innovation Research awards from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Air Force (USAF). The two Phase I programs provide about $200,000 of technology development funding to accelerate commercialization of novel thin film photovoltaic cells. Awards from the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Air Force are expected to reduce reliance on rare and toxic raw materials in solar cell fabrication and to improve the operability of the modern warfighter.

The DOE program is focused on the cost-effective reduction or elimination of rare and toxic elements from photovoltaic production. Over 90% of the solar modules produced today are crystalline silicon, the same material used in the manufacturing of computer chips, and are relatively expensive. The highest performance cells based on GaAs are extremely expensive due to the single crystal germanium wafers on which they are grown. Low cost, low efficiency, alternatives include thin film materials such as copper-indium-gallium-selenide and cadmium-telluride. Indium and tellurium are relatively rare and expensive and the toxicity of cadmium is a significant environmental concern.

The USAF is seeking to improve the logistics of providing power to warfighters in the field. Applications for low-weight, flexible, high-performance solar cells include surveillance satellites, unmanned air vehicles, tents, and personal power for soldiers.

Wakonda’s technology is based on a proprietary low cost alternative to single crystal silicon or germanium wafers. The company’s virtual single crystal (VSC) can be used in the production of both crystalline silicon and GaAs cells. The VSC is projected to allow the production of high efficiency Si or GaAs thin film cells, on a flexible substrate that allows high volume manufacturing in a roll-to-roll process.

Les Fritzemeier, founder and President, stated that the technology holds the potential to make solar energy competitive in price with conventional electricity. The flexibility of the paper-thin substrate would allow solar cells to be integrated into building materials such as roofing and awnings and the high performance of the GaAs cell can significantly reduce the amount of area needed to provide useful levels of power.

Founded summer, 2005, Wakonda combines advances in robust manufacturing processes for specialized electric power applications with the highest efficiency solar cells available to provide a disruptive, low cost renewable energy solution. Wakonda is addressing a $4.5 billion segment of the global photovoltaic market that is growing at over 30% per year.

Fritzmeier has 22 years of successful business development and product commercialization experience, including twelve years in aerospace power systems and seven years as director of a successful major ($8 million annual) electric power industry product development effort. Les holds 21 U.S. Patents, 16 with direct relevance to Wakonda’s portfolio.

The Company is conducting its product development activities through an expanding network of prominent research organizations. This network provides Wakonda with decades of in depth knowledge of materials processing and solar energy technology and access to millions of dollars in infrastructure.

Professor Ryne Raffaelle of the Rochester Institute of Technology is chief technical advisor to Wakonda for photovoltaic materials and devices. Ryne is Director of RIT’s NanoPower Research Laboratory and an internationally recognized expert in power technologies.

Virtual single crystal concept R&D is being conducted at the Cornell University Center for Materials Research. A NYSTAR grant was used for facilities improvements to support Wakonda at Cornell.

The NASA Glenn Research Center is providing photovoltaic fabrication and independent test capability to the company under the direction of Mr. Dave Wilt, another acknowledged expert in advance photovoltaic technologies.

The Air Force Research Laboratory provides services and technical expertise to Wakonda under a formal Cooperative Research and Development Agreement.

The Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster is an active and growing collaborative organization. Efforts are under way on joint training events, workforce development, collaborative advertising opportunities, promoting the commericalization of I.P., and development of our website to further facillitate business development.

Join us! There are advantages to working together, and we are interested in working with you. Send an email to us at membership@rrpc-ny.org.

To subscribe, to unsubscribe, to submit a news item or upcoming event, to suggest a feature or column, or to offer feedback, contact Tom Battley, at 585-329-4029.

Click here to download a version of this, or any of our previous Newsletters.