Source: GLGgroup.com

As stated in this source article, overall cleantech investment growth is expected in 2010 driven by energy efficiency and IPOs in Asia that are increasingly dominating the sector. Amidst increasing Chinese cleantech venture funding, the overall trajectory of the U.S. economy and stock market will have play a role in global financing over the course of the year. Read more here.

Source: Businessweek

During the boom, Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs dreamed of taking their companies public for all the recognition-and cash- that an initial public offering bestowed.  But a growing number of tech's hottest startups are passing on the process, or at least delaying it indefinitely.  Read more here.  

Source: The New York Times

The world’s biggest and most expensive physics experiment will finally be going into regular operation later this month, but it is going to operate at only half power for the next two years, CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said Thursday. Read more here.

We noticed that the show was a bit quiet. Was it because the venue is larger? Was it because some of the scientific attendance didnt come this year, given the change in location? Everybody seemed to agree on the better organization, nicer choice for the largest show in optics/photonics of the year. Rumors were contradicting each other as to when the show would go back to San Jose: next year? in 3 years? in 5 years? The later the better.

The South Hall gathered all the best/big players in my opinion and Amplitude/Crystal Laser/Imagine Optic/Fastlite booth was impressive: large, well designed, well situated, with loads of dynamic features (among which, disco lights, much to the taste of Samuel Bucourt).

Quantel had also made great improvement to their booth. A new marketing campaign, with bold colors and fun pictures. They indicated the traffic on the booth was way better than in San Jose, maybe due to a larger booth, better visibility and good situation.

The French pavilion was more open, and hosted regular visitors of the show: IXFiber, KLOE, Teem Photonics, Cordouan Technologies, etc.

The talk with executive perspectives on the world of optics and photonics provided us with a few insights:

• The active photonics market represents 127 billions worldwide. Flat panels market is the #1 market, by far. Solar shipments (PV) have grown dramatically and on a constant basis since 1980. Laser shipments from 1968 to 2009 show an average of 13% growth rate but we can notice a downturn about every nine years. The last one was in 2000, and 2009 proved to be one as well.

Read this excerpt of "LASER MARKETPLACE 2010: How wide is the chasm?" : "Despite the economy, financial performance of individual laser companies was largely a function of the particular market sectors served. While semiconductor, telecom, and materials processing were hit hard in 2009, instrumentation, military, and biomedical sectors fared better.

(...)So taking into account last year's "cyclic" performance, tempered with the upbeat attitude (and increasing orders) of most laser manufacturers going into 2010, all while heeding the caution that the bottom we've hit could be long and wide, Laser Focus World forecasts an increase of 11.1% in laser sales worldwide for 2010, bringing the sales total to $5.91 billion-still a long way from the $7.01 billion actuals in 2008. That said, laser sales are very much dependent on the health of the particular market segment in which they play. In 2009 as in previous years, 81% of laser industry sales were concentrated in three primary market segments: communications, data storage, and materials processing. And in 2010 (as in 2009), certain sectors will fare better than the rest."

To read more, click here.

• Discussions among the panel showed that generally speaking, industry executives thought the market hit botton in Mid-2009 and started to recover afterward. How much is recovery and how much is rebuilding the inventory? we'll know that in 6 months.

Europe was last to come down and fast to come back. Recovery was driven by R&D (stimulus) and semi-conductor OEMs. There were concerns about the resets of budgets in academia in a couple of years, once the stimulus is over. On the 8 billions the NIH got from the stimulus, only 2 were spent and it is not clear on what they were spent on. The panel expected more consolidation to come in 2010, especially if the economy picks up. Now is a great time to buy but a poor time to sell: as some dont have any choice but to sell, the rest will try to hold to their companies.

See you next year.

Source: MHT

New England tech companies may be putting the recession in their rearview mirrors based on hiring and confidence data collected by Mass High Tech in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Almost one third of the regional tech companies responding to MHT's quarterly Pulse survey (30.8 percent) plan to grow their local head count by more than 10 percent in early 2010.

With 18.9 percent of the 567 respondents saying they will boost hiring by at least 20 percent, that marks the highest total for that hiring level in more than a year and a half. While biotech, medical and Internet companies were most likely to grow their staffs by at least 20 percent, growth was expected in all tech sectors.
To read more, click here.

Source: MHT

One of the hottest business sectors these days is mobile technology. And New England, in particular, has successfully managed to parlay its deep experience in making the equipment and infrastructure of telecommunications and networking.

While the storied companies of the past - Cabletron Inc., Chipcom and even Digital Equipment Corp. - were focused on the cutting edge of wired connectivity, wireless is now the hot topic.

There are plenty of hardware and equipment makers locally focused on building wireless parts, including chipmaker Skyworks Solutions Inc. of Woburn, which just posted record revenue, and mobile switch maker Starent Networks Corp., which was acquired by Cisco Systems Inc. for $2.9 billion in October.
To read more, click here.

Source: Mass High Tech

An analysis of the stock price performance of New England technology companies during the first decade of this century shows that life sciences companies dominated, providing the greatest return from 2000 through 2009.

Of nearly 60 companies taken from the Mass High Tech and Bentley University New England Technology Stock Index, Hologic Inc. of Bedford, a maker of women's health products, led the top performers by ending 2009 at 866.7 percent of its 2000 share price.

At the same time, some of the companies suffering the greatest losses in share price value were on the IT side - networking and Internet infrastructure companies as well as software and semiconductors.
To read more, click here.

Source: OptoIQ

Source: OptoIQ

Raman spectroscopy promises to revolutionize cancer diagnosis and detection. An understanding of system components and their key parameters can enhance its for applications such as in vivo screening.

Optical spectroscopy provides a rapid, quantitative, noninvasive alternative to traditional cancer screening and detection techniques such as biopsies with histological analysis. Researchers working under Anita Mahadevan-Jansen at Vanderbilt University, Michael Feld at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (see www.bioopticsworld.com/articles/340114), Robert Alfano at City University of New York (see www.bioopticsworld.com/articles/345204) and Arjun Yodh at the University of Pennsylvania (see www.bioopticsworld.com/articles/322985) have demonstrated useful biomedical applications using a variety of spectroscopic approaches. To read more, click here.

Source: OptoIQ

In vivo optical molecular imaging (OMI) is poised to move into clinical use as one of the key tools in personalized medicine, complementing more established imaging tools such as CT and MRI. Growth of equipment sales is on track to reach $400 million in 2014 and nearly $1 billion by the end of the decade. However, this strong growth hinges on partnerships with key medical equipment vendors, the outcomes of clinical trials assessing imaging agents, regulatory approvals, patent litigation, and decisions about insurance reimbursement. These are some of the findings of a new market report from Strategies Unlimited.

Optical molecular imaging is an attractive and cost-effective tool for examining and monitoring disease states and todetermine a drug's effectiveness in living tissue. Highly portable, fast, and less expensive than conventional imaging technologies, it has the potential to bring sophisticated diagnostics right to the doctor's office. When coupled with more traditional imaging tools such as CT and MRI, optical imaging adds an unprecedented degree of quantification and specificity to the healthcare decision-making process. To read more, click here.

Source: OptoIQ

Nonlinear Raman microscopy is an emerging technique in biomedical imaging. An inexpensive prototype system, based on coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS), demonstrates value for real-time, minimally invasive chemical analysis of cells and tissues. It overcomes drawbacks of both Raman and CARS, and in doing so demonstrates potential for clinical application-including blood analysis and breast cancer detection.

Spectroscopy provides quantitative and chemically specific analysis of cells and tissues in a truly non-invasive way. Raman scattering of light by molecules can reveal vibrational and rotational modes, for example-but while Raman microspectroscopy has seemed a promising tool for bioimaging, its weak signal strength and background fluorescence are major obstacles to generation of unambiguous results in real time.¹ Recently, though, improved acquisition speed has drawn significant attention to nonlinear Raman microspectroscopy. To read more, click here.