Apr 30 2010
The CLEO/QELS: 2010 co-sponsors (APS, IEEE Photonics Society, OSA) and Laser Focus World today announced NTT Advanced Technology Corporation as the winner of this year’s CLEO/Laser Focus World Innovation Award.
The award recognizes the company for its development of a very broad-wavelength-range (532-4000 nm), voltage-controlled laser beam scanner with no moving parts that is 100 times faster and 100 times smaller than conventional scanners. NTT Advanced Technology Corporation will accept this award at the CLEO Plenary Session on Monday, May 17 at 6 p.m. at the San Jose Civic Center.
The winning entry, KTN Voltage-Controlled Laser Beam Scanner Using KTN Crystals, identifiesa novel laser scanning device that offers several benefits compared to conventional beam scanners. The device, which employs a crystal composed of potassium, tantalum, niobium, and oxygen, uses step and continuous operation with applied voltage formats rather than mechanical movement, allowing it to achieve operation rates ranging from DC to several hundreds of kHz. Simple in design, the compact, high-speed device can be used for such applications as laser radar detection, laser scanning displays, and laser machining.
“The KTN scanner is a very simple device that controls the laser deflection angle. Because of this capability, this basic optical component will have a wide range of potential applications and will bring new value to the industry by its unprecedented technical features such as high speed and compact size,” said Kazuhiko Komatsu, senior vice president of NTT Advanced Technology Corporation. “We are honored to be recognized by CLEO, Laser Focus World and the laser science community.”
NTT Group has filed more than 100 patents related to KTN crystal growth technologies, optical scanning devices, assembly technologies and applications.
“Each year, we are impressed by the number of submissions presenting significant advances in the field of lasers and electro-optics,” said Stephen Anderson, associate publisher and editor-in-chief, Laser Focus World. “The quality of these submissions is a reminder of the incredible strides in innovation being made by CLEO exhibiting companies. It is our honor, through the Innovation Awards program, to recognize NTT Advanced Technology and the three honorable mention companies. Their products represent some of the most ground-breaking and are likely to have a significant impact in this field.”
In addition to NTT Advanced Technology Corporation’s winning entry, three other products will be recognized during the CLEO Plenary Session on May 17 with honorable mentions:
- Femtolasers GmbH
CEP-Stabilized FEMTOPOWER V for Few-Cycle Pulse Generation For the FEMTOPOWER V carrier-envelope-phase (CEP)-stabilized booster amplifier that generates high-power, few-cycle laser pulses critical to the attosecond science community
- General Photonics Corporation
PMDPro Polarization Mode Dispersion Analyzer for Communications Networks For the development of a compact, all-digital, inexpensive test instrument that both generates and compensates for the effects of PMD in high-speed, in-service communications networks
- TOPTICA Photonics AG
High-Power Tunable Laser Source for Sodium Spectroscopy and Other Applications For the creation of a tunable, narrow-linewidth, high-power (30 W), 589 nm yellow laser for guide star, spectroscopy, LIDAR, phototherapy, and other visible and near-IR applications.
Each year, the CLEO/Laser Focus World Innovation Awards Program honors the most timely, ground-breaking products in the field of laser science. Designed to showcase some of the most significant new products in the field, Innovation Award entries are evaluated on criteria critical to product success: impact, functionality, life expectancy, effect on the optics industry, innovation and patents or trademarks.