The Colorado Photonics Industry Association (CPIA) hosted its 14th annual membership meeting on October 25 to showcase photonics research being conducted at Colorado’s universities. As well, CPIA also recognized Advanced Thin Films as its Company of the Year.
ATFilms specializes in advanced coating technology available, ion beam sputtering (IBS), and mastering the deposition of precise, dense, and durable films. As well they manufacture a full line of superpolished optical substrates with less than one angstrom RMS micro-roughness.
In addition to hearing presentations by each of the state’s research universities, there was a poster session that featured 26 research projects being conducted by students. Last year, CSU swept the top spots in the poster session; this year the top finishers were from CU and CSU. This year’s winning posters were:
First “Photolithography Process using Extreme Ultraviolet Lasers”/Wei Li
Second “Surface Acoustic Wave Metrology using EUV Light” /Kathleen Hoogeboom-Pot
Third “The Development of Multiparametric Microfluidic Flow Cytometry for Directed Evolution of Red-Fluroescent Proteins” Kevin M. Dean.
For the uninitiated, photonics is an enabling technology that is a driver of the state and national economy. The technology is the foundation of the aerospace, biomedical, homeland security, and medical device industries.
Photonics-based technologies impact our daily lives, although we may seldom recognize it. Something as simple as a mirror is a photonics device. Twenty years ago devices such as infrared remote controls, light-emitting diodes, sensors, and laser printers were novelties. Today they are common place. To learn more about the prevalence of photonics in our daily lives click here.
©Copyright 2011 by CBER.