Pushing envelopes

18 July 2012

As scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) edge closer to producing "star power" here on Earth, it's remarkable to see how central optics has become to a number of envelope-pushing endeavors.

Aside from the mind-boggling 500-trillion-watt pulses at NIF, there's the "extreme" adaptive optics system at Palomar Observatory that is beginning to capture images of planets orbiting distant stars, and what are believed to be the first clinical trials of terahertz technology during surgery. And that's just this week.

One of the major boundary-breaking challenges in which optics plays an ongoing role is the continuation of Moore's law through advances in lithography, with the generation of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light the current focus for those at the bleeding edge.

With a big vote of confidence from key customer Intel, a solid outlook and positive noises from senior executives this week, the lithography specialist and EUV pioneer ASML produced a different kind of envelope-pushing moment this week - the stock value of the industry bellwether rose to a record high.

As the rest of the photonics industry's big-guns get ready to report, stay tuned to optics.org for coverage of the latest financial results and market insights.

Mike Hatcher
Editor, optics.org
Twitter @opticsorg

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 NEWS & ANALYSIS


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