Jefferson County Gains Status as a Hotbed for Photonics and Nanotechnology R and D
Published Jan 06, 2009
ALIO Industries applies nanotechnology to produce air-bearing systems used in the semiconductor industry for the precise inspection of wafers.
Jefferson County has seen the light.
Specifically, the area’s growing photonics industry has done so and is putting it to good use.
Research into photonics, which produces power from radiant energy and involves fiber optics and lasers, and photovoltaics, which produces energy from sunlight, continues at a brisk pace, with no slowdown in sight.
“Colorado is really diverse,” says Barbara Ihde, executive director of the Colorado Photonics Industry Association. “We’re very strong in quite a few areas, such as precision optics, where we have one of the largest concentrations of companies in the nation and the world. We also have a lot of remote imaging here, with companies like Microsoft working on its Visual Earth project. We’ve become home to a lot of big players.”
Some of the area’s largest companies, such as Lockheed Martin Corp., CoorsTek Inc. and Pentax Imaging Co., are conducting research and development in photonics, while the National Center for Photovoltaics based in Wheat Ridge is home to a range of government-sponsored research and development activities.
A major boom area for the industry these days is data storage, which has a long history of research and development in Colorado. The push there is holographic storage, with companies coming up with products the size of a regular CD that will hold 300 terabytes of data, Ihde says.
“It’s a really exciting and interesting area, and we’re seeing a lot of growth,” she says. “We’re working now on starting some short courses on optics and lasers so we can help get a workforce in place. We have about 75 member companies, and we want to build up a training program for them to the point where there’s a technical program in the state, going down to the high school level, to teach kids how to work with light. It’s going to be everywhere soon, and these will be good skills to have.”
INNOVATION VIA NANOTECHNOLOGY
The same goes for nanotechnology, which is being utilized across a wide range of industries throughout the nation and world, in terms of both daily operations and development of new products.
In fact, nanotechnology is creeping into everyday life at an equally brisk pace, and the Colorado Nanotechnology Alliance works to provide the myriad companies in and around Jefferson County – such as ALIO Industries Inc. – a unified voice for promotion and education, says Debbie Woodward, executive director.
“Nanotechnology is the frontier of innovation in the 21st century and will impact almost every industry sector over the next 10 years,” Woodward says. “Nanotechnology drives innovation and provides solutions to make products better. Colorado is positioned to be a national leader in nanotechnology, with its stellar research and development occurring in the universities, national labs and companies.”
A key point to remember is that nanotechnology is a technology, not an industry, so its application is virtually unlimited, she says. “We have all the major assets to drive economic development in the state for job creation and major capital investment through nanotechnology. Nanotech provides solutions to make products stronger, lighter, faster – and better.”
Story by Joe Morris
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