Photonics West 2017: The view from the top

Written by Anne Fischer 6 February 2017

“Moving Technology to Market” was the theme at this year's Photonics West 2017, which concluded last week in San Francisco, California (US). With 1383 exhibitors, SPIE added 3000 square feet of space to accommodate the growth. The theme was evident across the show floor, with more than 200 new products on display, many of which are solving real problems and advancing new markets.

TetraVue, which was founded in 2008, is an example of a small company that just got venture capital funding to develop a time-of-flight imager intended for use in the autonomous driving industry. The company was exhibiting in the Job Fair area because the company is looking to add about 20 people in the next year, effectively doubling its workforce.

Another small company that made a big splash with a new product was Luxmux, which introduced the BeST-SLED broadband light source. A multiple super luminescent diode light source that provides up to 50mW of power over a spectral band of 1230nm to 1730nm has received much interest from scientific research and industrial markets, such as oil and gas.