Cardiology-focused medical device company OpSens Inc. entered into a definitive arrangement agreement with global health care company Haemonetics Corp. and its subsidiary to indirectly acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares in the capital of OpSens. The agreement will allow Haemonetics the use of OpSens’ portfolio, including its optical-based medical technology. SARATOGA, Calif. — Mojo Vision, a high-performance micro-LED company, closed a series A investment round worth $43.5 million. The funding will help the company move its micro-LED display technology toward commercialization. The current funding comes after the company closed on an initial series A round worth $22.4 million in April. A newly established collaborative research cluster aims to create an environmentally friendly commercial laser fusion reactor. Courtesy of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. TOKYO — The Tokyo Institute of Technology and Ex-Fusion Inc. established a collaborative research cluster focused on advancing liquid metal devices for the realization of commercial laser fusion reactors that do not emit greenhouse gases. The cluster aims to construct a concept for liquid fuel blankets suitable for laser fusion reactors. It will also develop the necessary liquid blanket component technologies while working broadly on joint research toward designing a blanket mock-up loop. Jade Bird’s 0.13-in. red micro-LED chips exceeded a record-breaking one million nits. Courtesy of Jade Bird Display. SHANGHAI — Micro-LED display manufacturer Jade Bird Display reported that its 0.13-in. red micro-LED chips exceeded one million nits, which the comapny said sets an industry record for brightness. The company produced 750,000 nits with its red panels earlier this year. WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Optica Foundation named its 2023 Optica Foundation Challenge awardees during the opening plenary session at Optica’s Frontiers in Optics/Laser Science Conference. The challenge annually recognizes 10 early-career professionals with ideas to leverage optics and photonics and address global issues. Each awardee receives $100,000 to advance their work. Recipients include University of Southern California’s Zaijun Chen for “Accelerating optical edge sensing with photonic deep learning”; Harvard’s Ahmed Dorrah for “Structured light generation and sensing with metasurfaces for THz communications”; and Vanderbilt University’s Justus Ndukaife for “Next-Generation high throughput plasmonic nanotweezers for nanoplastics analysis.” ESPOO, Finland — Nokia Bell Labs said that it has set two world records in submarine optical transmission: the demonstration of an 800-Gbit/s data rate at 7865 km using a single wavelength of light, and for establishing a net throughput of 41 Tbit/s over 291 km via a C-band unrepeated transmission system. CARVER, Mass. — Plymouth Grating Laboratory was chosen by a multi-institutional team led by the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) at the University of Rochester to develop the means to produce gratings — as large as two meters — to support the design of a world-leading EP-OPAL laser. Funding to develop the gratings is provided by a portion of an $18 million, three-year National Science Foundation award. The gratings will be used to compress the laser pulses to a duration of femtoseconds. The Electronics and Photonics Innovation Centre building. Courtesy of Photonics Express. KINGSBRIDGE, England — Photonics Express will relocate. The consulting and distribution company for laser materials processing will now operate in the U.K. out of the Electronics and Photonics Innovation Centre (EPIC). GLASGOW, Scotland — The University of Glasgow and University of Strathclyde are leading a consortium to support the aim of tripling the photonics sector across Scotland’s central belt. Awarded £4.7 million ($5.7 million) in funding, the consortium is one of 10 established by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) across the U.K. sharing an overall funding pool of £41 million. The consortium will also feature researchers from the universities of Heriot-Watt and St. Andrews. RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Commonwealth University College of Engineering was awarded a $9 million grant by the Department of Defense for the R&D of electro-optics, infrared, radio-frequency, and edge security technologies.