Rebecca Pool

Photonics helps advanced microscopes become more accessible

As microscopes become ever more powerful, a growing band of businesses are racing to make the latest technologies more accessible and more affordable, reports Rebecca Pool Just over four years ago, Dr Geraint Wilde, business manager for microscopy at…

Nion: The company that transformed microscopy

From aberration correction to single atom vibrational spectroscopy, Nion has taken electron microscopy to the nanoscale and isn’t stopping yet. Company President, Ondrej Krivanek, and chief executive, Tracy Lovejoy, tell Rebecca Pool where it all…

Navitas: Delivering A GaN Device For All Markets

GaN firm, Navitas, believes its latest half-bridge power IC will deliver the powers and efficiencies that mobile phone chargers, electric vehicles, photovoltaics and data centres need, reports Rebecca Pool In early September this year,…

Finwave: Getting GaN Ready For 5G

Can a relatively unknown MIT spin-off deliver the fast, cheap GaN finFETs that an entire industry needs? Finwave co-founders, Bin Lu and Tomas Palacios, have teamed up with industry veterans from International Rectifier, Peregrine Semiconductor and…

Red Light Success From Soft-Epi

As tech giants race to get AR headsets to market, all eyes are on a handful of companies striving to deliver reliable, bright red microLEDs. Soft-Epi is about to join the very few that think they can, reports Rebecca Pool. While Soft-Epi of South…

Building A Photonics Industry For Europe

By 2030, PhotonDelta intends to have created a pan-European integrated photonics industry that will churn out 100,000 wafers a year, reports Rebecca Pool. [Image: Luc Augustin, CTO of Smart Photonics, with a wafer containing photonic chips. (Bart van…

The Billion Dollar Fab That Could Change Industries

In an iconic moment for silicon carbide and electric vehicles, Wolfspeed opens 'the first, largest and only 200 mm SiC fab in the world'. What comes next, asks Rebecca Pool. On the day that Wolfspeed opened its 200 mm automotive-qualified SiC fab in…

BluGlass: High Hopes For California Dream Facility

As BluGlass laser diode developer buys a purpose-built manufacturing facility in Silicon Valley, Rebecca Pool talks to President, Jim Haden, to find out his plans for future success. In late March, this year, Australia-based GaN laser diode…

A fresh take on microscopy

Five years ago, Professor Aydogan Ozcan published research that was to change the trajectory of microscopy. 'Deep learning microscopy', in Optica, laid out how artificial intelligence could dramatically boost the performance of an optical microscope…

Innoscience Aims High At Global GaN

With new operations in the US and Europe, China's Innoscience is increasing investment and ramping 8 inch GaN-on-silicon production for worldwide markets, reports Rebecca Pool. If you wanted yet more confirmation that GaN players anticipate…

All systems go for free space optics

Without a doubt, the free space optics (FSO) community has its work cut out right now. As the demand for data continues to rise and radio wavebands become congested, laser communications offer the potential to open up a far less busy portion of the…

Covid-19: Optical scientists and engineers push back

It is hardly a surprise that this year's SPIE Photonics West conference sessions were peppered with presentations relevant to Covid-19. Be it methods to screen for the virus, systems that identify fast-flying Covid-19 droplets or non-invasive…

Bosch Steps Up SiC Chip Production

With SiC chips flowing from its Reutlingen fab in Germany, Bosch has its sights firmly set on leading the electromobility market, reports Rebecca Pool. In response to the ever-buoyant SiC device market, Germany-based Bosch has laid out plans to start…

United they stand

More and more library publishers are sharing experiences to topple tradition, reports Rebecca Pool More than two years ago and sometime before Covid-19 became a household name, the Library Publishing Coalition joined forces with the Educopia…

GaN Systems: Ready For Volume Production

With its sights set on EVs, device chargers and data centres, GaN Systems is primed for mass markets, reports Rebecca Pool. For Jim Witham, chief executive of Canada-based GaN Systems, one of the biggest success stories of 2021 centred on electric…

Supersizing light-sheet microscopy

Combining imaging modalities is helping neuroscientists find new ways to see the brain and nervous system A digital montage of a zebrafish embryo from Ernst Stelzer and colleagues at EMBL in 2008. The image was the first complete developmental…

Navitas: Plans For GaN Dominance

Recent analysis indicates that Navitas is now the market leader of GaN power devices. Rebecca Pool talks to Stephen Oliver, Vice President of Investor Relations, about the company's progress, products and plans. Image: Stephen Oliver (centre) with…

Professor Mick Brown: A lasting legacy

Be it breakthroughs in metal plasticity, the scientific insight that led to SuperSTEM or a remarkable knack to simply see what others can't, Professor Mick Brown has left an indelible impression on microscopy and so many students. Here's his…

The Bright Future Of Laser Diodes

The last few decades have seen the laser diode market grow from a multi-million dollar to a multi-billion dollar market, but Yole Développement reckons there's much more potential for growth yet, reports Rebecca Pool. The market for laser diodes is…

Enkris: Breaking 300 Millimetre Barriers

China-based Enkris has demonstrated 300 mm GaN-on-silicon epiwafers for HEMTs – here's how the epi-foundry super-sized its processes, reports Rebecca Pool. In September this year, Enkris Semiconductor claimed a breakthrough when it demonstrated…