In This Issue
- Ninth Annual Golf Tournament!
- ITAR & EAR (If you have to ask,
you still need to know)
- Tech Days - Albuquerque
- National Ignition Facility Dedication
- 48th Summer Optics Program
- Optifab Recap
- Conferences
ITAR & EAR Compliance
The Rochester International Business Council will host a two day conference focused on export compliance specific to Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The first day will cover EAR and the second day will cover ITAR. Experts in these areas will provide insight, case studies of recent violators and exporter responsibilities. featuring EAR and ITAR
June 10 - 12, 2009
Hyatt Regency Rochester, NY
- June 10 - EAR Seminar: 8:30am - 4:30pm
- June 11 - ITAR Seminar: 8:30am - 4:30pm
- June 11 - Networking Reception: 5pm -7pm
- June 12 - One-hour Consultations: 8:30am - 11:30am
Click here for more details.
48th Annual Optics Summer School
In 2009, The Institute of Optics will offer its 48th annual Summer School short-course series. This year’s offering will be a mix of a one-week course and two-and-a-half-day courses.
- Fundamentals of Optics (with labs) covering lenses, aberrations, principles of diffraction, optical systems, polarization, birefringence and crystal optics, and radiometry and detection. June 15-17, 2009
- Modern Optical Engineering (with labs) covering optical testing and instrumentation, optical manufacturing, optical thin film coatings, diffractive optics, and glass in modern optics.June 17-19, 2009
- Opto-Mechanical Analysis (with labs) covering opto-mechanical analysis methods used to design high performance optical systems. Finite element modeling techniques for analyzing light-weight mirrors, mounts, and lens systems will be discussed. Other topics include fitting surface distortions with Zernike polynomials and the analysis of line-of-sight jitter in vibration environments. The integration of thermal and structural responses into optical design software is presented. June 17-19, 2009
- Lasers and Optoelectronics (with labs) covering basics of lasers, laser systems and modern laser engineering, nonlinear optics, and semiconductor lasers LED’s, and detectors. June 22-24, 2009
- Biomedical Optics covers diffusion models of photon propagation in multiply-scattering tissues applications of photon migration: tumor detection and brain monitoring spectroscopic methods for glucose sensing and other analyte detection tissue alteration: photodynamic therapy and LASIK high-resolution imaging: confocal microscopy, multiphoton microscopy, and optical coherence tomography. June 24-26, 2009
- Electron Microscopy (with labs) covering topics in electron optics, sample preparations, imaging processes, and x-ray microanalysis for compositional determinations. June 24-26, 2009
- Optical Thin Film Coating Technology covers all aspects of optical interference devices including thin-film design, digital design methods, and coating and characterization. June 15-19, 2009
Registration forms are here.
NIF Dedication
Several component suppliers and dignitaries from Rochester joined over 2,000 people convened in Livermore California for the dedication of the National Ignition Facility on May 29.
Jim Sydor (Sydor Optics), Mike Pavia (Sydor Instruments), Eric Schwartz and others (ITT SSD), Henry Louis (AGI), Steve Loucks, Jim Oliver, Amy Rigati, and Robert McCrory (University of Rochester LLE) were in attendance. McCrory, LLE's Director, CEO and Senior Scientist, also spoke about lasers and inertial confinement during the NIF Technical Symposium on the 28th.
The world's largest and highest-energy laser was certified to operate by the U.S. Department of Energy on March 27, 2009. In 2010, NIF will focus the intense energy of 192 giant laser beams on a BB-sized target filled with hydrogen fuel — fusing, or igniting, the hydrogen atoms' nuclei in the world's first controlled thermonuclear reaction. This is the same fusion energy process that makes stars shine and provides the life-giving energy of the sun. Housed at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is expected to allow scientists to achieve fusion ignition in the laboratory, obtaining more energy from the target than is provided by the laser. The completion of NIF opens the door to scientific advancement and discovery that promises to enhance national security, the potential to help break America’s dependence on foreign oil, and lead to new breakthroughs in the worlds of astrophysics, materials science and other scientific disciplines.
The stadium-sized NIF is capable of focusing all of its 192 individual beams, each about 40 centimeters square, into a spot about one-half millimeter in diameter at the center of its 10 meter diameter target chamber. NIF has the ability to deliver large amounts of energy with extreme precision in billionths of a second.
NIF's 192 giant lasers, housed in a ten-story building the size of three football fields, will deliver at least 60 times more energy than any previous laser system. When all of its beams are fully operational, NIF will focus nearly two million joules of ultraviolet laser energy on a tiny target in the center of its target chamber – creating conditions similar to those that exist only in the cores of stars and giant planets and inside a nuclear weapon. The resulting fusion reaction will release many times more energy than the laser energy required to initiate the reaction. Earlier this month, NIF became the first fusion laser in the world to break the megajoule barrier (a megajoule is the energy consumed by 10,000 100-watt light bulbs in one second) by delivering 1.1 million joules of ultraviolet energy to the center of its target chamber – more than 25 times more energy than the previous record-holder.
The NIF & Photon Science Directorate collaborates with many partners in government and industry:
- National Nuclear Security Administration
- Department of Energy
- Los Alamos National Laboraory
- University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics
- Sandia National Laboratories
- Naval Research Laboratory
- Defense Threat Reduction Agency
- Department of Defense
- U.S. Army
- U.S. Air Force
- Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils, RAL (UK)
- Atomic Weapons Establishment (UK)
- Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung, GSI (Germany)
- Commissariat a L’Energie Atomique (France)
Workers moving the NIF target bay into place in June 1999. Once this move was completed, the building was constructed around the chamber.
Tech Days
Tech Days
Mirror Technology SBIR/STTR Workshop
16 - 18 June 2009
Hilton Albuquerque
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
New Mexico Optics Industry Association and SPIE are pleased to announce details for Mirror Technology Days 2009. Tech Days will be held June 16th to 18th at the Hilton Albuquerque in Albuquerque, NM.
Registration
The conference rate is $360 until June 3, when it will increase to $425. We also offer a one (1) day rate of $160 until June 3, when it will increase to $175. We encourage you to preregister, but we will also take registrations at the door.
Tech Days annually summarizes the USA Government's investment strategies and activities in developing technology for any application (such as telescopes, imaging systems, seeker/trackers, high-energy laser systems, solar energy, etc.) which requires optical components. Tech Days covers technology investment efforts in: optical materials; substrate design & manufacture; optical fabrication and metrology technology; optical coatings; wavefront sensing and control via adaptive optics; nano-technology imaging technologies; etc.
The purpose of Tech Days is to:
Discuss and take questions regarding mirror technology development related Sub-Topics of NASAís 2009 SBIR/STTR program.
Discuss and take questions regarding other Governmental Agencyís SBIR/STTR (and similar) programs which invest in mirror technology development, e.g. US Air Force, Department of Energy, US Army, MDA and NRO.
Summarize technology investments funded via 2008 SBIR/STTR Phase I and 2007 Phase II contracts.
Potential speakers for the pre-solicitation workshop include:
- Dr. James Breckinridge, Topic Manager for NASA SBIR S2 Advanced Telescope Systems
- Dr. H. Philip Stahl, Sub-Topic Manager for NASA SBIR S2.04 Advanced Optical Components
- Dr. Petar Arsenovic, Sub-Topic Manager for NASA SBIR S2.05 Optics Manufacturing and Metrology for Telescope Optical Surfaces
- Dr. Carol Lewis, JPL SBIR Technology Infusion Manager
- Cisco Tapia, AFRL SBIR Office
Register for Mirror Technology SBIR/STTR 2009 Workshop
Events and Conferences
University of Rochester Summer Program
Optics Summer Program
World Science Festival
11 - 14 June, 2009
New York City
Photonics Festival in Taiwan 2009
OPTO Taiwan / OPTICS Taiwan / LED Lighting Taiwan / SOLAR Taiwan / Display Taiwan
10 - 12 June, 2009
Taipei World Trade Center
Tech Days
Mirror Technology, SBIR/STTR Workshop
16 - 18 June 2009
Hilton Albuquerque
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
SPIE Optics + Photonics
2 - 6 August, 2009
San Diego, CA
SPIE Photonics West
23 - 28 January, 2010
San Francisco, California, USA
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9th Annual Golf Tourrney
Spread the word! The 9th annual WNY Photonics Golf Tournament will be held on July 23rd at Shadow Lake and Shadow Pines Golf Clubs in Penfield NY.
The event has raised a total thusfar of $60K to benefit the Golisano Children's Hospital at Strong.
Participation from WNY photonics companies, their suppliers and friends, as well as companies from as far away as Phoenix Optical Glass in Wales UK made the event a success once again in 2008. Ron and Diane Schulmerich are looking for volunteer committee members to help organize this year's event. The organization of the tourney has become more challenging each year with the increasing participation. They are in of a need of a little help from their friends!!
A noteworthy sponsorship was recently announced from a collaboration of the International Business Council of Greater Rochester and the Fuel Cell Division of GM. They are sponsoring a closest to the pin contest on each course. The winners will receive a GM fuel cell vehicle to drive for the weekend!
Contact Ron or Diane Schulmerich at wnyoptics[a t]rochester.rr.com
or
585-663-7230 -- 8:30am - 5:00pm M - F if you are interested in volunteering for the Optics Industry's largest networking event of the year.
Registration and Sponsorship forms are here.
Surface Roughness Specifications
The Other Forgotten Specification
Second only to the scratch and dig specification, surface roughness is the most misused, misunderstood, and misinterpreted specification on an optical drawing. Unlike scratch and dig, however, which is frequently cited as the cause for rejection of an optics, surface roughness is a silent cost driver, forcing good companies to no-bid on a meaningless specification while others simply ignore the requirement, whether it was important or not. The solution to this problem, as with scratch and dig, is for both the customer and the supplier to understand what is meant by the various surface roughness specifications, and to develop a common language for interpreting them.
The first thing to be aware of is that there is no standard definition of surface roughness. That means that a specification of roughness without a reference to spatial bandwidth, such as “surface roughness < 5 Angstrom RMS”, is completely meaningless (even aside from the fact that an Angstrom is not a scientific unit.)
The reason is that the surface texture of a polished surface is, for the most part, a statistical parameter which is a power function of the spatial periods considered in the evaluation. That means that the more trace length you measure, the higher the RMS. Moreover, studies on lapped metal parts have shown that the square of the RMS roughness increases as the scan length cubed. The RMS of polished glass parts see a lower dependence than metal, but still quite significant.
Power spectrum of a surface roughness trace. The RMS is just the square root of the area under the power spectrum. So the RMS increases with longer scale lengths, and decreases with shorter ones.
The best way to specify optical surface roughness is with ISO 10110-8, which draws upon the surface texture notation and calculations of the precision machining industry, documented in ISO 1302. While ISO 10110-8 is currently going through a major revision to bring it up to the latest version of the surface texture specifications in ISO, the existing notation is adequate for most applications.
The symbology is: 
Where a = the RMS roughness specification
b = the minimum sampling distance (usually 5 points on the trace)
c = the maximum sampling length (usually 1/3 the trace length)
For optics, a typical RMS roughness specification is:
Alternatively, one can simply add a spatial period range to the roughness note, such as “RMS roughness shall be less than 1nm for scale lengths from 1 micron to 80 microns.” That, at least, will result in a meaningful specification.
Want to read more? Check out this presentation on mid-spatial frequencies by Rich Youngworth, Jessica DeGroote Nelson and Dave Aikens.
Dave Aikens is president and founder of Savvy Optics. He lives in central Connecticut with his wife and three children, two cats, and about ten chickens.
Additonal Training Dollars Available with MCC
 The Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster is pleased to have a strong working partnership with the MCC Applied Technologies Center. In support of that partnership last year, MCC got a $100,000 grant from SUNY to assist RRPC Members with technical training.
These RRPC members benefitted from that grant:
- Reflexite
- Optimax
- Sydor Optics
- Syntec Optics
- Angstrom Precision Optics
- AccuCoat
- Corning Tropel
- JENOPTIK
- JML Optics
- Advanced Glass Industries
- Rochester Precision Optics
- Micropen Technologies Corp.
- Apollo Optical Systems
- Optics Technology
With RRPC Support, MCC applied for an extension grant of $30,000 and now has additional money available to help your firm.
Here's how it works:
- RRPC member company decides to implement a training program with a specific vendor/ instructor as the training provider (MCC does not have to be selected as the training provider).
- RRPC company notifies MCC
- MCC contracts with vendor/instructor
If additional openings exist, MCC will recruit other RRPC companies to fill vacancies
- Training Program is held - grant pays 80% of cost and RRPC company 20%
- Training can take place in any category except those that are mandated by other organizations (OSHA, etc).
No application is required. You only have to be an RRPC member company in good standing.
Contact Chuck Caples at 585-262-1429, or at ccaples[a t]monroecc.edu at MCC's Office of Workforce Development to request training, or for any questions.
OptiFab Wrap-up
Rochester Fabricator Conference A Success
 SPIE Optifab (Rochester, May 11-14) proved to be a success, even in this recession. Exhibitors reported highly qualified attendees touring the exhibition floor and the technical talks were well-attended.
According to Rick Nasca, Corning Tropel, conference co-chair and former APOMA president,
"The attendance at this year's Optifab demonstrates the relevance of this conference to our industry, which is an enabler in every other industry: medical devices, defense and security, consumer products, energy and energy research... you name it. 
The entire worldwide optics industry was represented on the exhibition floor. Big machine builders, suppliers and fabricators in every possible niche. A lot of people worked very hard to make Optifab a success, and it exceeded our expections, especially in this economy."
Rick Nasca, Corning Tropel
"Our thanks goes out to the superb staff at SPIE, all of the technical chairs and presenters, to our colleagues at APOMA, to the sponsors of Tuesday night's reception, and to the 155 exhibitors: thanks for making Optifab a one-of-a-kind conference in North America."
New York Economic Development / Budget Saga
Optics Eludes Albany
Considering the recent (and annual) successes of Optifab and the OSA FIO conferences in Rochester, it is particularly odd to relate this story.
Roughly two months after cutting 2009 funding to the not for profit industry groups promoting New York State's Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and Optics, Photonics & Imaging industries, New York State Governor David A. Patterson announced a Task Force to Diversify the New York State Economy though Industry / Higher Education Partnerships.
New York's Optics, Photonics and Imaging industry is comprised of hundreds of New York companies, employing thousands of high technology knowledge workers (read: taxpayers) and is holding its own-- even excelling in this economy. Yet oddly, the Industry is not mentioned in the executive order:
"The Task Force’s inquiry shall include analysis of ... Existing economic strengths and competitive advantages of New York State industry with respect in particular to renewable energy generation and storage, biotechnology, nanotechnology, animal and human health medicine, sustainable agriculture, food and wine, and related areas."
David Skorton, president of Cornell University will serve as executive director of the task force. The Task Force will be comprised of representatives from New York State government, institutions of higher education, research laboratories and leading companies headquartered in New York State.
Meanwhile, Kristin Proud, deputy director for state operations, is leaving her post to become finance secretary in the Senate. A Senate spokesman that Proud will move over to the Senate at the conclusion of the legislative session. In addition to the departure of several other holdovers from the Spitzer administration in the past year or so, Proud's departure would seem to signify waning confidence by the governor's staffers. The latest Siena poll found that only 27 percent of New York's voters think that he's doing a good job.
Contact RRPC
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Join us! There are advantages to working together, and
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