Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/297333
36 florida.HIGH.TECH 2014 from the Florida High Tech Corridor Council's Matching Grants Research Program. Optical fibers can be bundled together (much like a cable company's way of billing customers) and assembled into a specific array to deliver data, which requires manually stacking the individual fibers and fusing them together after they are perfectly aligned. "It's a very labor intensive process because you're work- ing with objects on a microscopic level," said Dr. Young Noh, president of Nanoptics Inc. Since it was founded in 1987, Nanoptics has developed and manufactured specialty opti- cal fiber, and the company holds a number of patents for processing optical fiber. His team of research engineers approached Dr. Toshi Nishida, an electrical and computer engineering professor at the University of Florida who specializes in microelectro- mechanical systems (MEMS) to initiate a research collabo- ration that would apply MEMS manufacturing techniques to the optics field. "The concept itself is similar to 3-D printing, building layer by layer," said Noh. Using a process known as microste- reolithography, or photolithography, each layer of the array is built with a photo-curable liquid chemical that is hardened into clear, rigid plastic by direct UV light. Most standard optics arrays in the industry use glass fibers, which are prone to breaking and wearing down after frequent use. Because it is cheaper to produce, using plastic would enable disposable arrays that could be thrown away after one use, which is especially important in applications like medicine where cross contamination is a concern. "There are numerous opportunities for this array to help interface optical signals in biomedical analysis equip- ment to the detection device," said Nishida. "This could include systems for DNA sequencing, molecular diagnos- tics and many others." The research is getting close to yielding the results that would prove this technology is ready for high volume pro- duction. "We're excited to bring this product to market next year to help lower the cost for applications in a multitude of devices where optical fibers are needed," said Noh.