Final Day of Green Photonics

21. May 2009
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Contributed by: C. David Chaffee, Chaffee Fiber Optics

IPG Photonics gains in fiber laser market

Santa Clara—IPG Photonics continues to cause marketdisruption with its fiber lasers, which lead IPG officials have decided to priceat the low end of the spectrum to make IPG’s leadership in this budding fieldeven harder to crack.

“The corporate leaders want as many people as possible touse lasers, period,” says Tony Holt, who recently joined the company and whopresented here at Green Photonics yesterday. While revenues have dippedrecently due no doubt to the recession, IPG continues to take market share fromother laser makers.

“It’s a lot easier to sell a fiber laser than any other typeof laser,” said Holt. “Laser diodes are the most efficient in directlyconverting electrical power to coherent laser light,” he continued. The simplethree-step process includes exciting the atoms, irradiating them with astimulating wavelength, and then allowing them to de-excite simultaneously.

Holt acknowledges that much of the technology came fromtelecom. While IPG Photonics makes its own optical fiber, Holt admits that IPG’sfiber is not that dissimilar from the standard optical fiber used in telecom.

Regarding wall plug efficiencies, Holt observed that fiberlasers have a 30 percent efficiency while carbon dioxide lasers have only a 20percent efficiency. Flashlamp-pumped solid state lasers have a 3.5 percentefficiency.

“The fewer optical components the better,” said Holt, whopreviously worked at Lumonics, Lucas Aerospace and Coherent.

IPG Photonics is using frequency doubling. “The 532 nm greenwavelength, achieved through frequency doubling, is a useful wavelengthparticularly for photovoltaics applications,” Holt observed.

Laser soldering of lead free alloys is “very easy,”according to Holt.

The company already is involved in some fascinatingapplications, including laser cutting for the underwater dismantlement ofnuclear installations. Laser welding of fuel cells and laser welding ofbatteries are other green applications IPG Photonics hopes to get involvedwith.

“Some of these lasers already are being used 24-7 on theproduction line,” said Holt. “There has been some very good technologydeveloped out of the meltdown.”

Ocean Optics spectrometers have global impact

Ocean Optics started as a “green company” back in the late1980s, when it won its first Department of Energy SBIR grant to develop aspectrometer, according to CTO Jason Eichenholz. Since then, the company hassold more than 100,000 units.

“Optical sensing drives a plethora of green applications,”said Eichenholz at the Green Photonics conference. Eichenholz served as generalco-chairman of the conference. The company instituted the color changes thatimpacted people so profoundly during the Olympic ceremonies in Beijing at theBird’s Nest, Eichenholz said.

The spectroscopy that Ocean Optics uses can be deployed fora wide variety of purposes, including the analysis of ozone depletion, foroptimizing crop production such as growing the healthiest soy beans.

UV tech useful in water treatment

UV technology forwater treatment has several inherent advantages over other technologies,according to OIDA.

Two different UVwavelengths, 254 nm and 185 nm, are used in water treatment. UV light at awavelength of 254 nm UV light is used in disinfection and ozone destructionapplications. At this wavelength, UV light penetrates the outer cell wall ofthe microorganism, passes through the cell body, reaches the deoxyribonucleicacid (DNA), and alters the genetic material, preventing replication. This typeof UV light also can destroy residual ozone present in a water stream.

Organic LEDs will have major market effect

While inorganicLED solid state lighting (SSL) is shipping today in many applications, organiclight emitting diodes (OLED) will begin to come to the lighting market over thenext several years, according to OIDA.

OLED lightingtechnology is advancing rapidly based on strong R&D support from industryand governments worldwide. OLED lighting, while not as far along thecommercialization path as LEDs, will encounter many of the same issues.

Significantimprovements in OLED luminous efficacy and stability remain to be achieved,according to OIDA. Of particular concern among many observers is cost. SinceOLEDs are fabricated as area light sources rather than point sources as areLEDs, a relatively large area of OLED panel is required for a given lightoutput. This characteristic places strong demands on the cost of substratematerials and on cost effective manufacturing processes for OLED panelfabrication.

It remains to beseen if fabrication of OLEDs on large panels of glass as in the LCD industry,and as for some photovoltaic technologies, will be cost effective for lightingapplications, OIDA says. Alternatively, roll-to-roll fabrication on polymer ormetal foil substrates may be required to produce cost competitive OLED lightingproducts. While OLED lighting is at an early development stage, the promise ofhighly efficient lighting products based on OLED technology remains a strongargument for continuing invest-ment in the technology.

OLEDs forlighting applications are under intense research and development worldwide withsubstantial funding from both industry and government driven by the expectationof large energy savings.

The GermanFederal Ministry of Education and Research is investing €100 million over fiveyears for OLED research with industry contributing €500 million more, OIDAreports. The European Commission invests several million euro yearly inresearch projects including OLLA and ROLLED. In 2008 the European Commissionrolled out several new programs on OLED lighting.

Although OLEDlighting has not yet reached the commercial market, active research anddevelopment is being carried out worldwide and across the spectrum of technicaland economic challenges, according to OIDA. As with many new technologies withpotentially high risk and high impact, early investment is coming fromgovernment, industry, and venture capital investors.

For example, in2007 General Electric and Konica-Minolta announced a strategic alliance toaccelerate development and commercialization of organic LEDs for lightingapplications. GE and Konica-Minolta have a goal to bring OLED lighting tomarket within the following three years. They see applications for OLEDlighting ranging from ceiling lighting for office and residential applications,to interior automotive and aircraft lighting, and to specialty lightingapplications including task lighting, signage and interior retail lighting. Onthe venture capital side, NanoMarkets reports that investments in organicelectronics startups was more than $200 million from 2003-2005.

The U.S.Department of Energy SSL Program has set ambitious goals meant to drive energysavings and OLED products to market. The U.S. Department of Energy has invested $40 million over five years beginning in 2003 in OLED solid-state lighting research. 

2009-05 May

Day 2 of OIDA’s Green Photonics Show

20. May 2009
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Contributed by: C. David Chaffee, Chaffee Fiber Optics

Dave Irvine-Halliday, founder of the Light Up The World Foundation, led yesterday’s Green Photonics show—OIDA’s OPTOmism Executive Forum and Conference in Santa Clara, Calif.—with a powerful and touching story of how his organization is helping poor people around the world through renewable technologies.

Irvine-Halliday, who sacrificed his career as a photonics engineer to start the foundation, helps the poor light their homes by providing solar panels or other renewable solutions so they can stop paying for expensive kerosene.

“We have projects all over the world—India, Nepal, South Africa, wherever people want us to go,” Irvine-Halliday said at yesterday's keynote. He described himself as a “social entrepreneur.”

According to Irvine-Halliday, people buy 100 billion liters per year of kerosene, which, besides being difficult for poor people to afford, produces lots of carbon dioxide.

“We try to get the renewable energy tools in the country we are visiting,” says Irvine-Halliday. “It is much easier to get the tools in Sri Lanka if that is the population we are helping, rather than going to Sri Lanka with solar equipment made in Calgary.”

The Foundation started in 1997, and first demonstrated how it would work in 1999. It started lighting homes in India in 2000, according to Irvine-Halliday.

Irvine-Halliday was trained as a photonics engineer with particular skills in fiber optic sensing and biophotonics. “My skill set matched the requirements of the job,” he told us.

“We know we can't light the entire world,” said Irvine-Halliday. “But we also know people cannot see their way out of the poverty trap in the darkness.”

There are currently five people in the Foundation. “We are always open to volunteers,” said Irvine-Halliday. Irvine-Halliday received a prolonged and thunderous ovation at the end of his presentation.

OIDA director Lebby says DOE’s Chu will help photonics efforts

The photonics industry will greatly benefit as the result of Steven Chu’s being named as Secretary of Energy, according to Michael Lebby, executive director of the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA).

“The development of LEDs, solid state lighting and optical sensing will all benefit from his enlightened leadership,” Lebby told us.

However, Lebby expressed concern about whether optical communications will get the help it needs. “It has not traditionally been under DOE’s banner.”

Lebby expressed concern that copper-based solutions will be approved for unserved areas as part of the broadband stimulus program. “I have not seen a drive for optically based solutions to the unserved,” said Lebby. Policy makers need to understand that fiber optics provides the best means for providing essential services like telemedicine to the unserved. “These are life-saving opportunities,” he stressed. “We need to roll out technology that is future proof.”

Penzias discusses “optical enablers of green investments”

Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias, who now directs venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, cited a variety of “optical enablers of green investments” during his speech here at OIDA’s Green Photonics show yesterday.

“Optical technology applications provide faster and less power-hungry computing,” said Penzias. He cited the move to silicon photonics as being a new, promising technology for computers. Penzias also believes optical active cables can help reduce energy in places like data centers.“There are very few things in the world cheaper than glass,” said Penzias. “I guess that is why people coat buildings in it.”

Penzias commented on the four leading thin film photovoltaic technologies as follows: 1) Cadmium telluride is “the cost leader” with effectiveness of 10 percent plus; 2) Amorphous silicon costs less than crystalline and is “very easy to make;” 3) copper-indium-gallium solenoid (CIGS) offers “the highest thin film efficiency with one company reaching 13.5 percent;” and 4) dye-based, photovoltaic ink printed plastic is light weight and can produce 6 W of power.

Penzias predicted that “we are going to see extraordinary improvements in batteries in the next four years.”

Raprid growth seen for distributed fiber optics sensors

The market for distributed fiber optic sensors will grow from about $220 million last year to more than $1 billion in 2012, according to David Krohn, managing partner of Light Wave Venture LLC.

The LIDAR wind sensor market and sensors for spectroscopy both have the potential to grow because of fiber optics, Krohn said.

The fiber optics sensor market for oil and gas may have a CAGR (combined annual growth rate) of 30 percent plus. The market size depends on how much a barrel of oil costs. “For the market to work, oil must be in the $70 to $90 per barrel range,” Krohn said. “I believe this will happen by the end of this year.”

However he believes the use of fiber optics sensors in power plants will grow at the more modest rate of seven percent.Krohn praised the efforts of the OIDA sensor consortium, which he says now has more than 50 members.

John Coates, president of Coates Consulting, said UV visible sensors have the potential to cost less than $200; near IR sensors cost less than $25; Raman sensors cost less than $1,000; mid-IR spectral detectors cost less than $1,000; and MEMS FTIR sensors cost less than $5,000.

“For sensing systems to be effective, they need to be heavily deployed,” said Coates. He sees sensors for personal use as a huge, coming market.

Mikko Jaaskelainen, CTO of Sensortran, said temperature change can have a huge impact on a fiber optic sensing system. “A 50 percent change in temperature will decrease the life of the fiber optic cable by 75 percent,” he said.

Samir Seth, vice president for Fiber Optics Business Development at Petroleum GeoServices, a company that has annual revenues of $1.9 billion and does most of its work below the water’s surface, said the company’s fiber optics links “allow you to see further into the reservoir.” Added Seth: “It makes the data better. Oil companies are often flying blind.” He did not have collaborating quantitative data, however.

The company’s OPTOSEIS 4D4C fiber optics seismic process is designed for deep water and is completely passive, according to Seth. The company trenches the optical fiber cable to about three feet below the sea floor. The process uses a Michelson interferometer. The signal is sent and returned through the cable and the phase difference provides information to the operator.

“What we help the oil companies do is reduce uncertainty in their decisions,” Seth says. “In a place like the Arctic, you may spend $1 billion in order to get $2 billion or $3 billion worth of oil,” he observes.

“We are the first to test an all-fiber-optics, sea-floor system,” says Seth, who notes that the process may include DWDM telemetry. The company uses Faraday rotating mirrors in its systems. Seth says the decision about when or whether to pull the cable up from the ocean floor belongs to the oil company.

 

2009-05 May

Strong Link between Photonics, Green Tech at OIDA Show

19. May 2009
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Contributed by: C. David Chaffee, Chaffee Fiber Optics

Santa Clara—Creative and innovative thinkers are finding lots of synergies between photonics and green technologies.


The overall growth of the industry, as projected by OIDA, which is sponsoring a Green Photonics show here this week, is expected to be very healthy. Green photonics accounted for a market of $28.9 billion last year. That is predicted to grow to $261 billion by 2020, according to OIDA.


“A cultural interest in driving green photonics is starting to come about,” said OIDA Executive Director Michael Lebby. “One result is expected to be more efficient fiber optics transceivers  and  photodetectors.”


Jan-Gustav Werthen, a senior director at JDSU, says field trials are now ongoing to power lasers used in fiber optics by solar power. “Not many people are aware that JDSU is doing active photovoltaics,” Werthen observes. “Digital sensing must be deployed more widely,” he notes.


Optical Sensing Seen Playing Critical Role

In fact, if there was one area where numerous photonic applications seem to be in play in green applications, it was in optical sensing.


For example, Paul Sanders, a founding partner at QOREX, said fiber optic sensors are being used to improve oil and gas exploration. “The sensors went in first in commercial systems in the year 2000,” said Sanders. “The first deployment results have been very positive. Installing sensors down the well, creating an intelligent well, has led to increased oil exploration.”


“Shell Oil is the earliest adopter of this technology,” according to Sanders. “Results have included   lowering the amount of overall drilling, with the drilling that does take place being more successful.”


Sanders acknowledges that the process is not cheap. Putting optical fiber cable down a 12,000 foot well, with all of that cable armored, can cost upwards of $250,000. But the results can far exceed that, he adds.


“Optical allows us to run cleaner coal,” said Henrik Hofvander, CEO of Zolo Technologies. Optical sensing allows the coal industry to burn coal more efficiently, he noted, simply by optimizing the existing infrastructure. Coal currently accounts for 52 percent of America's electricity. Some 90 percent of coal plants currently are at least 20 years old.


OIDA notes that another example of optical sensors is in wind turbines. By incorporating optical Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors on each blade of the wind turbine unit a single system can provide information for turbine control and also monitor the mechanical health of the structure. The optical sensors provide dynamic load measurements to the turbine controller. The embedded sensing elements deliver a full-range strain measurement over the blade’s operational lifetime and the system is resistant to the effects of EMI interference and lightning strike. The real-time load and strain information can be incorporated into the turbine’s monitoring system and can be used by load cycle counting and rain-flow data analysis techniques allowing for dynamic maintenance scheduling, according to OIDA. 


Duke Energy Finds Various Photonic Apps Helpful

IP Thermography allows Duke Energy to detect a number of hotspots in that grid, including failing insulators or conductors, according to a Duke official. UV cameras allow Duke to identify corrosion in the system, this official said—corrosion that “is very difficult to detect with the naked eye.” Added the official: “Failures can be catastrophic, depending on their locations.”  


Another photonic tool includes a video sagometer which can be used to monitor ground clearance, or sag, of power lines in real time by use of a camera.“We are interested in carbon avoidance technologies,” the Duke official said.


LEDs Gain Real Interest

Another photonic technology that is playing a role in green technologies is LEDs. High-brightness LEDs allow lower power consuming lighting solutions, according to OIDA. LEDs are starting to be seen in traffic lights, residential lighting, and even as back lights to televisions and displays. Organic LEDs are being used in a variety of small products, such as mobile phones, PDAs and applications that are sensitive to battery life.


Solid state lighting is increasingly becoming the light source of choice for interior and exterior architectural lighting, street lighting, automotive lighting, and diverse portable applications where energy consumption (battery life), long life and low maintenance are important, according to OIDA. In many new building and municipal lighting projects, solid state lighting is being selected for energy conservation as well as reduced life cycle costs and aesthetic reasons. 


Water disinfection systems based on ultraviolet lamp technology have been in use for many years, according to OIDA. More recently, UV disinfection has gained notice due to the attention paid to chlorinated disinfection byproducts (DBP), and new measurements confirming the effectiveness of UV light to inactivate Cryptosporidium. Chlorination is not effective in treating Cryptosporidium. Moreover, chemical reactions caused by chlorine, mixing with organic matter, are known to produce several chemical by-products, including trihalomethanes. There is concern that DBP may be associated with cancer and other health effects. For these reasons, UV water disinfection is of growing interest. 


IT Power Requirements Need to Be in Check

With the growth in information technology (IT) there has been a concomitant rapid increase in the electrical power consumption of computers and networking equipment, according to OIDA. Data centers are an extreme example. The total power demand in 2005 (including associated infrastructure) is equivalent (in capacity terms) to about five 1,000 MW power plants for the U.S. and 14 such plants for the world. The total electricity bill for operating those servers and associated infrastructure in 2005 was about $2.7 billion and $7.2 billion for the U.S. and the world, respectively. 


In 2007, it was estimated that the Internet represented four percent of North American power consumption, according to OIDA. This level of power consumption has caused data center operators like Google to locate their large data centers in regions with inexpensive electricity and consider renewable energy sources including hydro power and wind energy. Google has more than 1 million servers and has been steadily adding 300,000 to 400,000 per year. Its data center in The Dalles, Oregon consists of two buildings, each about the size of a football field, and two four-story cooling plants. Google’s commitment to carbon neutrality has sharpened its focus on renewable power sources such as wind power and hydro power. The Dalles was chosen in part for the availability of hydro power from the Columbia River, while the local utility’s wind power program influ-enced the selection of Council Bluffs, Iowa for a new data center to be operational in 2009. 


With this backdrop indicating the need to reign in data center power consumption, green opto-electronics are contributing to the effort, OIDA says. Optoelectronics suppliers such as Finisar are focusing on the ability of their products to provide “Low power consumption enabling a greener datacenter.” Active optical cable products, such as Finisar’s Laserwire, can significantly reduce power in data center applications, according to OIDA.


While the growth of green technologies, and the role of photonics in it, seems assured over time, it will not necessarily be a straight line upwards. Several speakers at the conference yesterday say there may be some near-term bumps. Gerry Fine, CEO of Schott North America, for example, said that a key policy of the German government to encourage green technologies is coming to an end. Several speakers also noted that Spain, which has had an aggressive green program, is capping its program. Fine believes that a shakeout may also be coming for the solar energy in the near-term. 


 

2009-05 May

I’d Like to Make a Quantum Phone Call, Please…

7. May 2009
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By Patricia Daukantas

Recent research using ordinary technology to share quantum mechanically entangled photons, or quantum keys, may bring the prospect of secure telecommunications closer to reality.

A Chinese research team has field-tested a secure communications system that uses decoy-state quantum cryptography, according to a recent article in Optics Express.

The group, based at the University of Science and Technology of China (Hefei) and Ningbo University (Ningbo), demonstrated a real-world application connecting three nodes with two 20-km links of commercial telecom optical fiber. Much recent work on quantum key distribution technology has been on point-to-point operations only, instead of the more realistic situation of networks with multiple users. The application used the decoy state method to boost the key generation rate and increase the distance for secure message transmission.

Another team, based at Toshiba Research Europe Ltd. and Cambridge University (England), built a gigahertz-clocked quantum key distribution system using only “practical components.” Group members made asymmetric fiber Mach-Zender interferometers from off-the-shelf components, and their system employed decoy pulses to detect photon-number-splitting attacks. The team achieved a secure key rate of 1.02 Mbit/s over 20 km of ordinary fiber. The research was published in the New Journal of Physics.

As a Science editor wrote about the Optics Express article: “With such a demonstration, quantum privacy in your own home may not be a too distant prospect.”

 

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2009-05 May