August 9, 2005...Canada has been helping lead the photonics revolution (which includes LEDs) for decades, but with recent downtimes, we haven't heard much from the land of the Mounties. Compound semi industry veteran Dr. Paul Jay is helping change that. As executive director of the Canadian Photonics Consortium, Paul is helping lead this trade association through events and conferences that support the Canadian government's trade missions in photonics. One of the goals of the conferences and trade missions is to devise Canada's strategy for photonics developments, especially for photonics development related to healthcare applications. Canada's initiatives provide an excellent role model for other countries, so I asked Paul to share with our audience the consortium's mission by previewing Photonics North, an upcoming symposium slated for September 12-14 in Toronto. HB-LEDs and OLEDs are very much included in the event. To follow is Paul's report, peppered with his unique communications style and upbeat humor...JMcD

So What Else Would Canada Do With Its Photonics Technology?
by Paul Jay, Ph.D., Executive Director, Canadian Photonics Consortium

The last few years have seen quite a regrowth of photonics activity as many of the skill-sets nurtured in (and then downsized out of) the labs of Nortel, JDS Uniphase, Bookham, etc. have now diffused into new applications sectors. Teams of talented individuals are emerging in government labs, university research teams, startup companies, and various established industries as new technology opportunities are explored. A scan of the 300 plus papers in the program our upcoming Photonics North event, which will be held in Toronto Sept 12-14, 2005, shows precisely where these new opportunities appear to be directed.

Three out of the nine sessions are packed with presentations on photonics in biology, biosensors and medicine. Several of these papers come from teams working with hospitals close to the University of Toronto, and reflect the energy and leadership of Dr. Brian Wilson, who heads the Division of Biophysics and Bioimaging at the Ontario Cancer Institute. Brian is also Professor of Medical Biophysics at U of T and will be delivering one of the plenary talks at the conference. His talk is titled Biophotonics: from Lab to Clinic and he will also be the lunchtime speaker at the International Photonics Forum on Monday Sept 12th. Hopefully he will restrain himself from showing his slides of various stages of surgery, out of respect for the luncheon guests!

Another of the plenary speakers reflects a Canadian business success story that grows directly out of a biomedical photonics opportunity. Dr. Julia Levy took an observed effect of light sensitive chemicals in naturally-occurring cow parsley, and with some colleagues from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, founded QLT Inc., which has now become a world-leader in photodynamic therapy. QLT's Visudyne therapy for age-related blindness received FDA approval in April 2000. Julia will convey the excitement of cross-disciplinary interactions between photonics experts and immunologists. Julia's type of reaction is encountered frequently now as photonics specialists who had previously been in the telecommunications sector find their experience of value in refreshingly different contexts.

Just outside Quebec City, the National Optics Institute (NOI) is benefiting from its proximity to Laval University to recruit some of the world-class graduates and researchers from the well-developed optics and photonics programs in Laval's Science and Engineering Faculties. Besides incubating successful startup companies like Teraxion (advanced Bragg grating technology and dispersion compensation devices), the NOI has also generated a major body of licensable intellectual property (IP) in areas of collaboration, including: applications in the pulp and paper industry, military, and security uses of photonics, and a recent collaboration with the Food Research and Development Centre of Agriculture and AgriFood Canada. This agriculture-sector project has demonstrated that an infrared spectral absorption technique can clearly discriminate between two adjacent vintages of a Shiraz red wine. How long will it be before a handheld LED-driven version of that technique will become the 'must-have' gadget for oenophiles? There is probably no shortage of volunteers for an exhaustive field trial of the prototypes!

Despite the extensive cross-fertilization of photonics into other fields, Canada's telecom sector continues to pursue significant advances in increasing the operational cost-effectiveness of optical networks. The Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) recently funded a major joint project between several Canadian Universities (McGill, McMaster, Ottawa, Queens, Toronto) and partner companies (Nortel, JDS-Uniphase, BTI Photonics Systems Inc, Anritsu, Adtek Photomask, and Telus) for a $7M (Cdn), 5-year program called All-Agile Photonic Networks. While this project looks at some of the more far-reaching challenges, Ottawa-based Tropic Networks recently landed almost $50M (Usd) of additional funding for its development of ROADM (Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexing) solutions to the challenge of routing data streams entirely within the optical domain.

Another good reason to attend Photonics North is the Monday Sept 12th International Photonics Forum. This more business-focussed event highlights a variety of international strategies and case-studies of new emerging applications of photonics. In a session on Imaging & Display Technologies, speakers from the UK, USA and Korea will address commercialization aspects of new displays... and organic LED (OLED) technology features strongly here, offering multiple advantages of lower cost, reduced power consumption and weight, together with improved brightness and viewing angle. Organic emitters will also be featured in a session on Solid State Lighting, with talks on product development from Philips in Germany and Enfis in the UK, as well as a review of the technology behind Dave Irvine-Halliday's incredible Calgary, Canada-based Light up the World Foundation. The LUTW initiative aims to bring LED illumination to thousands of non-electrified homes in developing countries around the world.

The Photonics North conference series has grown out of meetings initiated in Quebec several years ago, and last year's Ottawa meeting attracted over 1100 delegates and 115 Exhibitors. This year's organizers are the Toronto-based OPTIC Photonics Cluster, together with the Canadian Photonics Consortium (CPC) and SPIE and we're targeting 1500 delegates and 150 exhibitors. Plans are already underway for Photonics North 2006 in Quebec City next June. CPC is an industry-trade association based in Ottawa, and provides a function that layers across the various regional photonics clusters. This currently involves four clusters: The Quebec Photonics Network, the Ottawa Photonics Cluster, the Ontario Photonics Industry Cluster, and the Vancouver-based British Columbia Photonics Industry Association. There is currently discussion addressing the possibility of creating a mid-western Provinces cluster to reflect the growing deployment of photonics in the thriving oil/gas industry sectors. The CPC function provides support in coordination of the various regional industry needs, articulating these upwards towards government policy discussions and outwards to help with international liaison and trade missions.

Now is the time to get on-line and plan your trip to Toronto for this exciting 3-day event, 12-14 September. In case you need another excuse, it occurs during the second week of the hugely successful Toronto Film Festival! You could spend one week encased in dark movie theaters and a second week celebrating ingenuity with light! I look forward to seeing you all in September. If you'd like to contact me directly... I'm Paul Jay, Executive Director of the Canadian Photonics Consortium. My tel in Canada is (613) 828 6274 ext 220 and my email is: pjay@photonics.ca