An Australian company is to build the world’s first automated laser system to track dangerous space junk.
A consortium headed by Electro Optic Systems Holdings has been awarded a $4.04 million grant from the Australian Space ResearchProgram (ASRP), which will go towards the $9 million cost. The project will be based at EOS’s current facility at Mount Stromlo.
via TG Daily.
Scientists, using three NASA satellites, have created a first-of-its-kind map that details the height of the world’s forests.
via TreeHugger.
Tohoku and Sony develop first 100W blue-violet ultra-fast pulsed semiconductor laser
Professor Hiroyuki Yokoyama of Tohoku University’s New Industry Creation Hatchery Center (NICHe) and Sony Corp’s Advanced Materials Laboratories in Japan have jointly developed a blue-violet indium gallium nitride (InGaN)-based ultra-fast pulsed semiconductor laser with peak output that is 100 times that of the highest output for existing conventional blue-violet pulse semiconductor lasers (Appl. Phys. Lett. vol 97, issue 2, 021101).
via Semiconductor Today.
It’s a modern-day version of Marco Polo’s journey halfway around the world – but is anyone at the controls?
A team of Italian engineers on Tuesday launched what has been billed as the longest-ever test drive of driverless vehicles: a 13,000-kilometer, three-month road trip from Italy to China, not in search of silk, but to test the limits of future automotive technology.
Two bright orange vehicles, equipped with laser scanners and cameras that work in concert to detect and help avoid obstacles, are to brave the traffic of Moscow, the summer heat of Siberia and the bitter cold of the Gobi desert before the planned arrival in Shanghai at the end of October.
via Xinhua.
IMRA America, Inc. is celebrating its 20-year anniversary as a research and development company in the field of fiber lasers.
The 50th anniversary of the laser has stimulated worldwide interest in the history of quantum electronics. This special collection, “Beginning of the Laser Era in the USSR,” presents early Soviet pioneering works that had a significant impact on laser science and quantum electronics. Several of the papers have never been published in English and were not generally available outside the USSR.
via Optics InfoBase – Laser Era in the USSR: LaserFest.
OSA has put a collection of early USSR papers on lasers online.
“Star Wars” creator George Lucas wants to force a laser company to stop making a new, high-powered product he says looks too much like the famous lightsaber from his classic sci-fi series.
Lucasfilm Ltd. has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hong Kong-based Wicked Lasers, threatening legal action if it doesn’t change its Pro Arctic Laser series or stop selling it altogether.
“It is apparent from the design of the Pro Arctic Laser that it was intended to resemble the hilts of our lightsaber swords, which are protected by copyright … ,” said the letter, dated last month and provided to CNN by Wicked Lasers.
via CNN.com.
Wicked Lasers is fighting back, they even put the letter on eBay for bid.
Moderately intense pulsed laser light can force cancer cells to take up drugs from their environment. So say researchers at the University of Ulm in Germany who have used red light with a wavelength of 670 nm to expand the water contained in biological cells. When the laser is then switched off, the water retracts instantly and the cells can “suck in” drug molecules from a surrounding solution Photomedicine and Laser Surgery 28 429.
via optics.org.
TOPTICA is awarded 5 Mio € Contract by ESO for Sodium Guide Star Facility
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at Paranal, Chile, will be equipped with four cw high power Laser Guide Stars on the basis of amplified and frequency-doubled diode laser systems. Narrow band and diffraction-limited laser light sources of more than 20 W exactly on Sodium resonance at 589 nm start a new phase at the European Southern Observatory. Against strong international competitors, TOPTICA won now the final development and supply contract which foresees a deployment of the lasers at the telescope in Sept 2013.
via Toptica: News.
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute of Laser Technology in Aachen have devised a method for making made-to-measure, porous bone implants from degradable materials using a laser melting technology.
An alternative to titanium implants, degradable implants are intended to replace the missing pieces of bone only until the fissure closes itself up. That may last months or even years, depending on the size of the defect, the age and health status of the patient. A new implant improves the conditions for the healing process and emerged from the Resobone project of the federal ministry for education and research.
via spie.
