Photonics West

The great optical show, Photonics West, is currently going on at Moscone Center in San Francisco. As always, it is a really big show. There are hundreds of conference presentations and then there is the exhibit floor. This year the exhibit floor space totals more than 160,000 square feet. And my feet hurt.

The show sponsor SPIE estimates the companies on the exhibitors at this years event generate $85 B in sales of core photonics components. There are a total of 1,250 exhibiting companies.

One of the companies with a large booth is Newport. The company manufactures a vast array of advanced technology products and includes leading brands such as Corion, New Focus, Oriel Instruments, Richardson Gratings, and Spectra-Physics.

Another of their brands is ILX Lightwave, which makes laser diode instrumentation. ILX is showing the model LDC-3736 laser driver and temperature controller. It can handle standard and quantum cascade laser diodes and has set-point accuracy of ±0.15%, current out of up to 4 A, a compliance voltage of 18 V, and a thermoelectric temperature controller with up to 128 W out (www.newport.com/ilxlightwave).

Also interesting is the Synopsys booth and their simulation software. The RSoft LED Utility can simulate a wide variety of opto components and is useful for many optical components and for lighting design as well.

Texas Instruments is demoing some new versions and applications of its DLP light projector – a digital micomirror device (DMD). They have impressive demos of 3D printing and spectrum analysis applications. I wouldn't miss it – if you can get into their booth. It's pretty crowded.