2010 CONFERENCE AGENDA
(subject to change without notice)


7:00 am
Registration Opens
Continental Breakfast and Networking

8:00 am
Welcome and Introduction
Kathy Bush
Group Publisher
Laser Focus World (Nashua, NH)

8:10 - 8:30 am
50 Years of Lasers:
An Inventor's Perspective on High-Power IR Lasers and the Laser Marketplace
Dr. C. Kumar N. Patel
Chairman & CEO
Pranalytica, Inc. (Santa Monica, CA)

The era of high-power lasers began with my invention of the CO₂ laser in 1964 at Bell Labs. An explosion of technological and scientific applications followed as global laser industry revenues grew to more than $7 billion annually while I watched the growth of the CO₂ laser industry, to more than $1B annually, from the sidelines with considerable satisfaction. Now, another development in high-power IR lasers is occurring and I am a participant in ushering in the era of high-power quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) with their unprecedented applications in civilian, military, and homeland security markets. In this brief session, I will describe the joys of seeing a fascinating new technology flourish into a global industry aided by two different laser systems that rapidly gained technological significance and customer acceptance. I will also summarize the differences between the CO2 lasers and QCLs in their market penetration.


8:30 - 9:05 am
The Lasers and Photonics Marketplace
Stephen G. Anderson
Editor-in-Chief / Associate Publisher
Laser Focus World (Nashua, NH)

The global market review and forecast provides an overview of current worldwide laser markets, from the laser technologies to the applications driving revenue growth. The discussion includes estimates of current and projected global sales revenues by application, as well as the trends in those application sectors—at the macroeconomic level as well as the system and laser product levels.


9:05 -  9:40 am
The Global Market for Industrial Laser Materials Processing
David Belforte
Editor-in-Chief
Industrial Laser Solutions (Nashua, NH)

The market for industrial lasers and systems experienced a severe recession in 2009 and prospects for recovery in 2010 are mixed. In a truly global market, industrial laser system revenues will benefit from a faster recovery in certain market regions that are not as dependent on specific industries and applications. For example Asia versus North America. Market sectors are reviewed and estimates for 2009 sales and a projection for results in 2010 are made.

Results from the total market are expected to show double digit declines, with significant deficits in industries such as fabricated sheet metal; a major revenue producer for high power lasers. Marking with about half the lasers sold experienced its severest decline in a decade, but is expected to lead the recovery in early 2010. Strength in applications for the energy (solar and battery), medical devices and aerospace industries is expected to offset, to a degree, the declines in heavy fabrication.


9:40 - 10:10 am 
REFRESHMENT BREAK 


10:10 - 10:50 AM
University/Industry Partnerships: Forging Meaningful Technology Development Programs for Long-Term Business Success
Randy Heyler
President
InnovaConnect Partners (Newport Beach, CA )

With increasing dependence on our Universities for long-term R&D to keep our industries competitive, it is imperative that we increase both the frequency and efficiency with which technology is developed and deployed between our Universities and the commercial sector.

This talk will describe various models for technology development and transfer, and provide examples, resources, and recommendations for developing successful technology development and deployment collaborations.


10:50 - 11:30 AM
The Markets for Lasers in Micro Materials Processing
Dr. Tom Hausken
Director of Optoelectronic Components
Strategies Unlimited (Mountain View, CA)

The market for lasers for so-called micro materials processing is one of the fastest growing segments in the laser business.  It uses sub-kilowatt lasers for precision processes like repairing semiconductor wafers, scribing solar cells, drilling printed circuit boards, making microwelds in medical devices, engraving industrial parts, and many more.  The extreme fragmentation of the segment makes it very difficult to comprehend, however.  This talk will present some of our recent findings on this market segment, many of which also reflect on other segments in the laser market.


11:30 am - 1:00 pm
NETWORKING LUNCH


1:00 - 1:45 pm
KEYNOTE: 
THE NATIONAL IGNITION FACILITY: Bringing Star Power to Earth
Dr. Jeff Wisoff
Lawrence Livermore National Labs (Livermore, CA)

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national center to study inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and high energy density (HED) science at conditions of over 100 million degrees, 100 billion atmospheres and specific densities over 1000. The 192-beam football stadium-sized NIF is now operational at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). NIF is the most complex optical instrument ever constructed, with over 38,000 large and small optics and 60,000 points controlled by two million lines of software. The NIF laser system is designed to produce 1.8 megajoules of energy driven with 351 nm of ultraviolet light using nanosecond pulse lengths. A total 192-beam energy of 1.1MJ has been demonstrated; this is approximately 30 times more energy than ever produced in an ICF laser system. A major goal of NIF is the demonstration of ignition—net energy production from thermonuclear fusion. This talk will describe NIF, the ignition campaign, and new opportunities in fusion energy and high energy density science enabled by NIF.


1:45 - 2:30 pm
Hot Markets: Trends in (lasers for) Cytometry
Dr. William Telford
Staff Scientist & Facility Head
National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD

Flow and image cytometry are critical technologies for biomedical research, and lasers are by far the most common excitation sources for this instrumentation. The recent development of small, inexpensive solid-state lasers in a variety of visible wavelengths has dramatically expanded our analytical capabilities, giving us access to literally thousands of cellular fluorescent probes. This talk will discuss the laser specifications required for flow cytometry, and give practical examples of how novel solid-state laser technology has revolutionized the field.


2:30 - 3:00 pm
REFRESHMENT BREAK


3:00 - 4:25 PM
Technology Forum: Green-emitting Lasers and Their Applications
Introduced and moderated by Martin Seifert
President
Nufern (East Granby, CT)

The announcements earlier this year by Sumitomo and Osram that they each have developed green-emitting laser diodes (at 531 and 515 nm respectively) raises the specter of a "true green" semiconductor laser light source competing in the marketplace very soon. At the same time, Coherent announced that its OPSL is now available in a 5W green version targeted at Ti:sapphire pumping. Other technologies in the green-emitting arena include fiber, disk, and DPSSL lasers. This year's Technology Forum will highlight the technologies and market potential of these green-emitting laser sources and offer seminar attendees a unique perspective into how these sources compare in a variety of current and emerging applications.

3:10  -  3:25 PM
Diode-pumped Solid-state Lasers
Herman Chui
Senior Director of Product Marketing
Newport/Spectra-Physics (Mountain View, CA)

Green-emitting lasers are an enabling technology in a variety of important established and emerging applications.  In this panel, we review some of the technologies used at Spectra-Physics for green lasers.  We also highlight some of the key applications for green lasers in the life and health science, photovoltaic, microelectronics, industrial and scientific markets.

3:25 - 3:40 pm
Fiber Lasers
Dr. Tony Hoult
General Manager
IPG Photonics (Oxford, MA)

Both continuous wave and pulsed fiber lasers have now been scaled up to very high average powers, and now fiber lasers and fiber laser based systems are being scaled down into the low average power, short pulse regime. This has enabled alternative high efficiency frequency doubling concepts to be utilized for green lasers. Many of the benefits of fiber lasers will therefore be available for micro-machining processes that require 532nm wavelengths. These concepts and the applications that have previously been the preserve of diode pumped solid state lasers or less efficient flashlamp-pumped solid state lasers and that now may benefit from fiber laser technology are discussed.

3:40 - 3:55 pm
Disk Lasers
Juergen Stolhof
Program Manager
TRUMPF (Plymouth, MI)

The disk technology is well established in many industrial laser processes. Now this technology has proven to be the key enabler for generating green laser light starting in the picosecond regime , producing hundreds of watts in the nanosecond pulse regime and in the cw mode. The various pulsing characteristics are well suited for a variety of materials and associated applications.  Scribing of thin film solar cells with picosecond lasers, drilling of Silicon  and welding of copper in the electronics  industries are just some highlights.


3:55 - 4:10 pm
Optically Pumped Semiconductor Lasers (OPSLs)
Luis Spinelli
CTO
Coherent (Santa Clara, CA)

The market space for CW green lasers spans diverse applications including bioinstrumentation, entertainment and displays, medical, forensics, holography, and pumping high-performance scientific laser systems. In turn, this demands that the laser industry provide a correspondingly broad-spectrum product offering in terms of performance, cost-of-ownership, and so forth. A single technology--the optically pumped semiconductor laser--now provides the inherent flexibility to support all these applications with optimized true CW performance. This presentation will illustrate this flexibility by showing how the OPSL platform meets the needs of cost-sensitive/low power bioinstrumentation applications and the multi-watt power and low noise requirements of the most demanding of scientific tasks. The broad wavelength select-ability of OPSLs is also well-suited to applications that require a specific green wavelength other than the limited 532 and 514 nm of legacy technologies--such applications can be developed at the desired wavelengths instead of the available ones.


4:10 - 4:25 pm
Green-emitting Semiconductor Lasers
Dr. Paul Rudy
VP, Business Development
KAAI (Goleta, CA)

The recent progress in the commercialization of green laser diodes is creating opportunities to expand existing markets and enable new growth segments as well.  Because of the advantages inherent in green “direct-diode” lasers, growth is projected from displacing conventional visible lasers in elastic segments within defense, industry, and medicine.  Moreover, new laser applications in display and illumination will be created by converting users of non-laser sources such as specialty lamps and LEDs to green LDs.


4:25 - 5:00 pm
Panel discussion

5:00 pm
ADJOURN