News & Events

Zak Niazi was a student in the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester and asking the question: What if? What if he could find a way to show 360-degree video without the complicated and tedious stitching required to make a seamless stream? The question led Niazi to find solutions in physics for that kind of real-time, spherical, 360-degree streaming video. In overly simplified terms, he used polygonal lenses...Continue Reading

Photonics product manufacturing company will expand village gate location in the city of Rochester. Investment complements “Finger Lakes Forward” – The region’s comprehensive strategy to revitalize communities and grow the economy. Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that Ocean Insight, a spectroscopic systems developer and manufacturer, is ready to expand its Monroe County operations and committing to creating up to 100 new jobs over the next five years. Ocean Insight cited the significant...Continue Reading

Immersive academy offers students and industry professionals a full week of intensive short courses and hands-on training on integrated photonic circuit design, chip fabrication, packaging, testing, and system applications After a two-year hiatus, we are pleased to announce that the AIM Photonics Summer Academy will return to MIT on July 25-29, 2022 for a week of intensive study of the design, manufacturing and packaging of application-specific photonic integrated circuits. With...Continue Reading

Leaders from top research universities in India are in Western New York for a three-day materials science workshop at UB focusing on the development of joint projects relating to nanomaterials. The UB-Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) UB-Indo Workshop, which began Monday and concludes today, centers on the design, synthesis and data-driven discovery of nanomaterials for electronics, photonics and biotechnology. Activities include presentations, strategy sessions, laboratory and facility tours, and many...Continue Reading

Despite the pandemic cloud that hung over the economy, Excell Partners had much to celebrate in 2021. Companies in its portfolio made big strides and its Finger Lakes Fund posted a banner year. “It has only been three years since the inception of the Finger Lakes Fund and yet it is already showing strong performance with a 49.5 percent (internal rate of return) since inception,” says Theresa Mazzullo, CEO of Excell,...Continue Reading

Two new awards will help the University of Rochester prepare a more diverse pipeline of optics professionals. Two recent awards will enable the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester to help address a pressing need for highly trained PhD graduates, including women and underrepresented minorities, in industry, research labs, and academia. A $900,000 GAANN (Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need) grant from the US Department of Education will pay for six...Continue Reading

Contact Lens Manufacturer Will Expand its Distribution Center Operations in West Henrietta and Manufacturing Operations in Scottsville  Investment Complements “Finger Lakes Forward” – The Region’s Comprehensive Strategy to Revitalize Communities and Grow the Economy Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that CooperVision will expand operations at two separate locations in Monroe County, creating to up to 173 new jobs. Citing an increase in global demand for its contact lenses and a...Continue Reading

AIM Photonics has announced the release of a new process design kit (PDK) developed specifically for advanced photonics applications using silicon nitride waveguides. The new PDK gives AIM Photonics members and multi-project wafer (MPW) customers access to even more leading-edge technology to design, manufacture and package their photonic integrated circuit (PIC) prototype devices at the institute’s state-of-the-art fabrication facility at Albany Nanotech in Albany, NY, and Test, Assembly and Packaging...Continue Reading

As highly-contagious Covid-19 subvariants proliferate, two U.S. researchers are using photonic biosensors on a chip to fight back with a wider scope of immunity testing. “What we are doing,” said Ben Miller, professor at the University of Rochester, “is showing how to quickly adapt a test assay to a new variant.” “Rather than just test for one protein from one virus, we can look at several different variants, and find...Continue Reading

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) executed a trade secret license to a silicon-nitride-based photonic component library to the Research Foundation for the State University of New York (RF SUNY), the administrator of AIM Photonics. By working closely with AIM Photonics’ foundry, the NRL’s Optical Sciences Division is developing photonic components with functionalities targeting Department of Defense (DOD) priorities such as analog signal processing, quantum information and computing, data remoting,...Continue Reading