Boston Micromachines Awarded $750K NEI Grant

Boston Micromachines Corp. (BMC) of Watertown, Mass., a provider of microelectromechanical (MEMS)-based mirror products for adaptive optics systems, announced that it has been awarded a $750,000 Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Eye Institute (NEI) of the National Institutes of Health to advance the research and diagnosis of eye diseases in the elderly. BMC said the grant will allow the company and its research partner, the School of Optometry at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., to develop an adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AOSLO) instrument capable of high-resolution retinal imaging of 95 percent of the population. "As the first instrument to provide the combination of high-resolution and high-amplitude wavefront correction using a single deformable mirror, this new system will have tremendous implications for our elderly population, whose aging eyes have more aberrations and suffer from debilitating eye diseases," said Paul Bierden, president of BMC.

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Published: October 2007

Glossary

adaptive optics: Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effects of atmospheric distortions. The Earth's atmosphere can cause light passing through it to experience distortions, resulting in image blurring and degradation in various optical applications, such as astronomical observations, laser communications, and imaging systems. Adaptive optics systems actively adjust the optical elements in real-time to compensate for these distortions. Key...
eye: The organ of vision or light sensitivity.
nano: An SI prefix meaning one billionth (10-9). Nano can also be used to indicate the study of atoms, molecules and other structures and particles on the nanometer scale. Nano-optics (also referred to as nanophotonics), for example, is the study of how light and light-matter interactions behave on the nanometer scale. See nanophotonics.
photonics: The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems. The range of applications of photonics extends from energy generation to detection to communications and...
wavefront: A wavefront refers to the continuous surface or boundary representing points in a wave that are in phase, meaning they have the same phase or position in their respective cycles. In simpler terms, it's the front edge of a wave as it propagates through a medium. For example, in a water wave, the wavefront would be the crest of the wave, representing the points where the water's surface reaches its highest elevation. Similarly, in a sound wave, the wavefront would represent the points of...

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