Full company details
SPIE
The International Society for Optics and Photonics
1000 20th St.
PO Box 10
Bellingham, WA 98227-0010
United States
Phone: +1 360-676-3290
Fax: +1 360-647-1445
Thorlabs Opens New Jersey Facility: Week in Brief: 5/30/25
Photonics.com
May 2025NEWTON, N.J., May 30, 2025 —
Thorlabs opened a 100,000 sq ft facility in Newton, N.J. at the site of the company’s corporate headquarters. Thorlabs will use the facility as its North American distribution center, and the facility will house the company’s Advanced Systems Technology business unit, and corporate quality and compliance teams.
Thorlabs' newly opened facility, co-located with its corporate headquarters in Newton, N.J. Courtesy of Thorlabs.
GALWAY, Ireland — Atlantic Technological University (ATU) was awarded €8.46 million ($9.6 million) in funding to create the Semiconductor Photonics Education and Research (SPEAR) Centre, which will focus on smart manufacturing, photonics integration, and AI design. ATU’s WiSAR Lab will lead the center, in partnership with Ulster University and the Tyndall National Institute at University College Cork, and industry partner Seagate Technology. The project is supported by the Special EU Programmes Body PEACEPLUS program.
TRUMPF's Malaysian Technical Center. Courtesy of TRUMPF.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — TRUMPF Electronics, a plasma power supplier for the semiconductor sector, will open a technical center in Malaysia. The technical center will provide maintenance and repair services for international equipment manufacturers.
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — SPIE awarded $323,000 in scholarships to 74 SPIE Student Members based on their potential contribution to optics and photonics, or a related discipline. In addition, 66 more recipients received individual awards ranging from $3000 to $5000. A list of the winners is available on SPIE.com.
MUNICH, Germany — The European Union consortium PREVAIL, created to prototype chip fabrication in advanced AI technology, will open its services to external customers next month, it said. The PREVAIL project aims to position Europe with an accessible, advanced manufacturing infrastructure that allows users to create early research samples of innovative and reliable Edge AI products, accelerating their path to commercialization. PREVAIL is coordinated by CEA Leti, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, imec, and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Access for EU designers will provide process design kits and design rule manuals compatible with standard commercial computer-aided design tools.
EINDHOVEN, Netherlands — AI medical tech startup Perceptra is the winner of PhotonDelta’s Global Photonics Engineering Contest. Perceptra’s entry focused on developing a compact, low-cost, PIC-based Raman analyzer for real-time molecular monitoring in biomanufacturing and other process industries. Perceptra will receive €50,000 (~$57,000) worth of services to bring its concept to life, and now has an opportunity to raise a loan of up to €2 million with PhotonDelta to kick-start growth. Additionally, PhotonDelta will showcase the contest-winning tech at PIC Summit Europe 2025, in November.
SOFIA, Bulgaria — EnduroSat, a satellite constellation-as-a-service provider, received a €43 million ($48.8 million) investment, which it will use to scale production of its Gen3 ESPA-class satellites. These 200-500-kg software-defined satellites will feature advanced avionics and a fully modular design, suiting them for operators looking for fast deployment of hyperspectral imaging, among other demanding payloads. The funding will also support the buildout of a facility in Sofia. By the end of 2025, the company aims to produce as many as 60 satellites per month at the facility. The company is also continuing to scale its U.S. operations, building a dedicated U.S.-based cleanroom.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — BTQ Technologies Corp, a global quantum technology company focused on securing mission-critical networks, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Quandela, a French quantum computing company. Under the MOU, BTQ and Quandela will investigate real-world use cases for Quandela’s photonic quantum computing platform, collaborating on the use of Quandela’s boson-sampling technology.
India's Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) opened the Quantum Technology Research Centre. Courtesy of DRDO.
DELHI, India — Defence Research and Development Organization, an Indian government defense developer, opened the Quantum Technology Research Centre (QTRC) in Delhi. The facility will be used to further strengthen indigenous quantum capabilities for strategic and defense applications. The center’s capabilities include the characterization of VCSELs and distributed feedback lasers as well as testbeds for evaluating single-photon sources. QTRC also focuses on foundational technologies including an ultra-small atomic clock based on coherent population trapping for highly precise timekeeping in global navigation satellite system-denied environments; an atomic magnetometer using optically pumped magnetometry for ultra-sensitive magnetic field detection; and solid-state quantum devices and materials.
KEMPELE, Finland — Laser marking solution developer Cajo Technologies secured an investment from Emerald Technology Ventures to help scale the global rollout of its patented marking technologies. The round will accelerate Cajo’s growth and allow the company to commercialize its MakeBright product and other marking technology for use in packaging. Cajo’s technology aims to enable the implementation of machine-readable traceability markings that last throughout product life cycles even in challenging conditions.