In This Issue

New Products & Capabilities
Optipro Steakout
Anual Meeting: Save The Date!
Advanced Manufacturers Futures Forum
Mnemonic Mathematical Aids
LLE's Summer Research Program
MCC Optics in the 60's
Collaboration Everywhere!
Conferences

Steakout!

Optipro's Annual Open House Event

October 21st and 22nd
10:00am to 7:00pm
6368 Dean Parkway
Ontario, NY

Highlights (besides networking and food!) will include live demos of OptiPro's optical machining centers and metrology equipment. In addition, demos of 5-Axis machine tools, including DMG, Hurco, Yama Seiki, and Ares-Seiki will take place. Mastercam's newest software, X4, will be showcased as well.

New this year, OptiPro is planning technical presentations from Sandvik, DMG, Hurco, and Mastercam.

Contact Lynda Bechtold (Lynda[at]optipro.com) or call 585-265-0160 ext. 236

Vincent Awarded Patent for New Shutter

Vincent Associates US Patent for N-CAS® NS Electrical Shutters

Vincent Associates, the manufacturer of UNIBLITZ® shutters, received a United States patent for the UNIBLITZ®II N-CAS® NS series of shutters, recently released as a new product line. These products are the NS15 (15mm), NS25 (25mm), and the NS45 (45mm) series of shutters. Additional aperture sizes and additional uni-stable devices will also be available soon.

The UNIBLITZ®II N-CAS® NS series is a novel innovation in shutter design from Vincent Associates. The devices' reliability has been enhanced by significantly reducing the number of moving parts. The total number of moving parts has been reduced to six, five of which are the shutter blades themselves. The activating mechanism is non-contact and has shown to increase its reliability through testing over similar type shutter designs.

The N-CAS® device is innovative by comparison. There are no solenoids, no linkages and no external damping system. The damping system has been integrated into the device to provide long lasting, quiet operation. The only protruding component is the unit's actuator coil. The external mounting surfaces of the device are flat which make the shutter simple to integrate into user applications. These shutters are bi-stable, only requiring power to change their state. The devices can also be configured uni-stable (powered active and return to the default state once power is removed). The referenced patent is here.

New Camera From FluxData

FluxData introduced a 3-CCD polarization camera in a new compact form factor.

The FD-1665P is a new camera system capable of collecting video at three linear polarization orientations simultaneously. Polarimetric imaging is an active research area in medical, machine vision and defense applications. Because the polarimetric preserving and/or inducing properties of materials are often complementary to their spectral signatures, polarization provides additional information to analysts and researchers. Polarization imaging has been used to identify stress and defects in aircraft assemblies; “see” into the water column in littoral and marine applications; separate specular from diffuse reflectance for material analysis and identification; and automatically detect man made objects in natural surroundings.

FluxData develops and manufactures multispectral systems for a wide range of industrial and defense applications.

Michael Cumbo Joins Semrock

Dr. Michael J. Cumbo has been appointed Semrock's new General Manager, effective September 14, 2009.

Cumbo brings nearly 30 years of experience in lasers and electro-optics at publicly traded photonics companies such as OCLI, JDS Uniphase, and Coherent, and venture capital funded startups BinOptics, Raydiance and NanoGram Solar.

He has a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from RIT and both a Masters and a PhD in Optics from the UR Institute of Optics.

Dan Rao Joins Sydor Instruments

Sydor Instruments announced the appointment of Daniel Rao as Account Executive: Aerospace & Defense. Rao has more than 14 years of experience in both the commercial and government communications and electronics industries. He has a solid record of achievement and demonstrated success driving multimillion-dollar program growth, while providing award-winning sales leadership in highly competitive technical markets. His diverse professional experience includes program management, product development, and sales management.

Prior to joining Sydor Instruments, Rao was a Business Development Manager at Harris Corporation’s RF Communications Division where he spearheaded an entrepreneurial team focused on expanding the division’s product portfolio outside its traditional markets. This growth initiative led to the introduction of a new family of products designed for US government customers.

Prior to his work with Harris, Rao was the Director of Business Development at Phoenix Systems Corporation, a wireless communications equipment and services provider. He was instrumental in the development of the company’s business strategy and growth, and successfully increased company sales into both commercial and government industries.

Rao has a BS in Environmental Science from SUNY College at Brockport, and holds numerous certifications and awards for sales excellence.

Lunch and Learn

What It Takes to Grow Sales 30% to 300%

This Lunch and Learn Session is Limited to Company CEO's, Presidents, and Vice Presidents of Sales, and will be limited to 12 attendees.

In the Optics/Photonics Industry companies are selling complex and leading edge technology solutions to some of the most sophisticated buyers in the world, including the Department of Defense, Defense Primes, Fortune 500 Companies and many other High Technology Industries. One observation is that the sophistication of your Optical, Photonic and Imaging products and services has outpaced your ability to sell them. For some, this may represent the single biggest barrier to growth.

Some industries selling into this same customer segment have successfully leveraged expert level solution selling capabilities that have enabled them to grow at a record pace of 30%-300% year over year.

The focus of this lunch and learn is to discuss the steps in transforming your sales capabilities to win higher and bigger contracts.

Learn more and register by calling Tom Battleyat (585) 329-4029 or by sending him an email.

Advanced Manufacturers’ Futures Forum

Building Minds that Make It

Keynote Speaker: Takashi Tanaka
World’s leading expert on Toyota Development System

Creating the Multi-Skilled Technology Worker Pipeline: A Toyota Perspective

Monday, November 2, 2009
2:30 –8:00 PM
Monroe Community College
R. Thomas Flynn Center
Rooms A & B
1000 East Henrietta Road

Consultant Takashi Tanaka played an integral role in developing Toyota’s ‘oobeya’ project process for the first Prius, cutting the development cycle from a forecasted 36 months to an actual 18 month on-time production start. He has served Canon, Mitsubishi, Panasonic and other Japanese clients in various aspects of the Toyota Management System, and worked with more than 35 European clients.

In 2005, his company, QV Systems, Inc., formed a partnership with Toyota Engineering Corporation, to provide additional consulting services in Toyota Production System and Toyota Marketing and Sales System.

Takashi helps build client internal capabilities based on Toyota’s human-side approach. A key principle of workforce improvement is ‘multi-skilled worker.’ This keynote addresses Toyota’s global approach to people development—and the famous Toyota ‘Thinking about People’ policy. His remarks will cover the requested role of educational institutions, and internal worker development in the Toyota factory. He will also make recommendations to create an effective, efficient pipeline of multi-skilled graduates of high school, technical college and university.

Tanaka was graduated with the BSME, and earned an MBA at Oklahoma State University. He currently resides in Seattle and Tokyo.

Completed registration form and check must be received by 10/27/09. Registration is filling fast. Join these and many more companies for this exciting Forum.

Contact Nancy Roberts for registration information: nroberts[at]rochesterworks.org

Events and Conferences

RRPC / New York Photonics Annual Meeting
Tuesday, November 17th 3:30 - 7:30 PM
Eisenhart Auditorium, RMSC
657 East Avenue, Rochester

Grow Sales 30% - 300%
Tuesday, November 24th
Lennox Tech Enterprise Center
150 Lucius Gordon Drive
West Henrietta, NY
Call or email Tom Battley (585) 329-4029

OP TEC Workshop on Optics & Photonics Education
RESCHEDULED for February

SPIE Photonics West
23 - 28 January, 2010
San Francisco, California, USA

SPIE Defense, Security & Sensing
5 - 9 April, 2010
Orlando, Florida, USA

Optatec
15 -18 June, 2010
Frankfurt, Germany

Save The Date

RRPC / New York Photonics Annual Meeting

November 17th

3:30 PM- 7:3o PM

3:00 PM registration

Eisenhart Auditorium

Rochester Museum & Science Center

Clambake Recap

Rochester Event Draws Countrywide Crowd

Thanks to everyone who made this year’s clambake a success. It was another excellent opportunity for people to get together with friends in the industry.

People traveled from Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Massachussets, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvannia and throughout New York State for the event.

Two new records were achieved: first, attendance hit 147 people; quite an echeivement in the current economic circumstances (though people are sensing a rebound there). This is the highest attendance achieved in a year that the OSA Frontiers in Optics show was not coinciding with the clambake. The second record is the clam eating record which has jumped to 19 dozen clams (unaudited).

Thanks to Schott North America for sponsoring the extra hour of open bar.

Save the date for next year, Monday, October 25, 2010 – the night before the 2010 FiO OSA show.

Monroe Community College Optics... the 60's

The First Of Two - Part Article By Martin Dvorin

In the early 1960’s, the Optical Society of America, in a research effort “Optics - an Action Program”, under the direction of its president, Van Zandt Williams, determined that, from both retirements and deaths, the United States was losing its optical technicians. Independently, Corwin Brumley, Vice President for R&D at Bausch and Lomb, I, and others around the coffee pot came to the same conclusion. Optics was changing. We did not have the technicians with the skills needed for present and future projects. All of this pointed to an impending national crisis.

One afternoon, in the summer of 1966, while I was working away in my ‘skunk works’ office at Bausch and Lomb, there was a knock on the partition opening that served as a door.

“Martin Dvorin?”

“The same. And you are?”

“Frank Milligan, assistant to the Vice President of Faculty at Monroe Community College. May I come in?”

How he was directed to me, I’ll never know, but Dr. Milligan came to ask me to take over the Optical Technology Program at M.C.C. At the time I was Technical Director of a large R&D contract, a project that I could not leave until it was delivered. So we settled for my teaching nights, adjunct, at the ‘campus,’ an abandoned high school on downtown Alexander Street (414 Alexander Street, converted to apartments in 1980).

That first evening, in September 1966, I faced 13 younger Marty Dvorins, when, in 1951, I started my own night school program which had only concluded a few months previously in the spring of 1966 (note: Marty got his Masters Degree from the Institute of Optics in 1966, after 15 years of night school while working a full-time job).

Among the students present were Robert Novak and the late Harvey Pollicove. We had a cozy lecture hall, and high school Cenco lab equipment and maybe some from drug stores. We used photographic equipment from the Police Science Department. My shared desk sat in a “bull pen” office, which housed faculty from many departments. Dr. Howard Smith of Eastman Kodak was the other part-time faculty member.

In the spring of 1968, the B&L project having been delivered, I could take on full-time duties at the College. Since my goal was to teach what would be useful to students in their work, I wanted lots of input from the local companies which would be hiring them. I visited several in the area and interviewed managers, filling in a survey that included questions such as what equipment the graduates would use, what skills they would need, and most secretive of all, how many graduates would be hired in one, two and five years.

The agreement with the employers was this: information from any one company would be absolutely confidential, but the totals from all companies would be public knowledge. I took the results, and added in a little “technology forecasting,” imagining what future developments might be in store. All of this went into the design of the MCC optics courses and recruiting plans. The advisory committee was pleased with what I presented. Also, I would be actively recruiting minorities, which in 1968 included women.

The first course in the new campus, a Survey of Optics, for the general public, was presented in the summer of 1968. The first full-time optics students entered in the fall of 1968, to unfinished facilities. “Blackboards” were corrugated cartons.

One day, Dr. James Walsh, V.P. Faculty, entered and stood quietly in the back of the room. I always invited any member of the faculty to sit in. I was lecturing by the light of my Coleman lantern. Jim had heard of this and wanted to observe it. I was a one-man department, and we did a lot of improvisation and construction. Money was tight. Local companies contributed equipment and supplies, and I brought in my own darkroom stuff. Steve Avery was the first student aide. When he saw me clamber up onto a darkroom counter he said, “Marty you’re pretty agile for an old guy!"

I was forty-five years old at the time - a real old guy!

...continued in the next issue

Marty Dvorin UR Optics '66
was Chairman of MCC's Optics Program from 1966 - 1976
Dean of MCC Engineering Technologies 1976 - 1978
Marty lives in Marin County, California

Optics Math

Match Reference Formulas for the Memory Disadvantaged

In the optics business, we do a lot of math. Whether we are buying, selling, designing or using optics, we are frequently scrambling for one equation or another, to convert one cryptic wedge specification into something measureable, or to go back and forth between the wave-front specifications and the results on the test plates. Most of the math we need is buried somewhere in one or more of our optics textbooks or in some spreadsheet we built once and can’t find any more. Identifying the right equation is often elusive, even with the wonders of Wikipedia and Google. Optics math, it seems, doesn’t pop to the top of the search engines very cleanly.

Thankfully, Ray Williamson of Ray Williamson Consulting has posted on the web a wonderful cheat sheet of handy formulas drawn from his Optics Shop Math course. I’ve pulled from it some of my favorites, but I recommend looking for yourself.
Ever since taking Geometrical Optics I have been able to remember the equation for converting sag to radius, assuming the radius is long. When R is a long radius, y is semi-diameter, and S is sag,

But it’s not always good enough, and there’s a longer equation for the exact result that I can never remember:

Thankfully, Ray has it on his list, where I can find it quickly. Some other nice resources are the blocking equations, for calculating appropriate batch sizes, the plate distortion equation for thermal and pressure differentials, and the formula for converting fringes of power in a test plate (N) to radius error:

Then there are the equations I can remember, but I can’t be sure I got all the n’s and n-1’s in the right place. For example, you can predict the double pass transmitted wave front error of a window from its internal Fizeau fringes using:

Better than all of these, though, is the table of conversions to/from wedge, edge thickness variation, decentration, and beam deviation. Not only does he have the relatively simple equations for windows and plano convex/concave optics, but table 2 has all the conversions for any general lens, convex or concave on either side. This table alone is reason enough to bookmark Ray’s website for future reference.

Some day Ray or someone will put all these equations into an iPhone application, like Bruce Truax has done with the lens equations and the Fresnel formulas in his OpticsCalc application. But until that happens, Handy Equations will remain my resource for optics math.

Dave Aikens is president and founder of Savvy Optics. He lives in central Connecticut with his wife and three children, two cats, and about ten chickens.

LLE Summer High School Research Recap

The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) at the University of Rochester holds an annual summer research program for Rochester-area high school students who have just completed their junior year. The eight-week program provides an exceptional opportunity for highly motivated students to experience scientific research in a realistic environment. Students who are accepted into the program are assigned to a research project and supervised by a staff scientist at the Laboratory. These projects form an integral part of the research program of the Laboratory and are related to the Laboratory’s 60-beam OMEGA laser, one of the world’s most powerful fusion lasers, and the OMEGA EP laser, completed in 2008.

At the end of the program, the students present the results of their projects at a symposium in the Laboratory. The students also produce written project reports. The students work 40-hour weeks and are paid. The program is a commuter program and no provision is made for student housing during the summer.

Only students currently in their junior year are eligible. To apply, a student must submit a letter indicating his/her desire to take part in the program and fill out an application form. The student must also submit a short essay describing his/her interest in science and technology and his/her future goals. As supporting material, the student must submit a copy of his/her transcript and a letter of recommendation from a science or math teacher. Several applicants are interviewed before the final selection is made. Selections are announced by the beginning of May. United States citizenship is required.

16 students participated in Summer, 2009, engaged mostly in physics, some chemistry, engineering and computer oriented projects, all related to scientific programs at the Lab. The 2008 project list is here. A story in the LLE publication is here.

Dr. R. Stephen Craxton, the Program Director, is at (585) 275-5467. Next year's application process begins in February 2010. We will promote it in the newsletter at that time.

Contact RRPC

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Join us! There are advantages to working together, and we are interested in working with you. Send an email to us at membership@rrpc-ny.org.

To subscribe, to unsubscribe, to submit a news item or upcoming event, to suggest a feature or column, or to offer feedback, contact Tom Battley, at 585-329-4029.

New York Photonics and The Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster (RRPC) are not-for-profit organizations founded to promote and enhance the New York State photonics, optics and imaging industry by fostering the cooperation of business, academia and government.