LASERS’ ROLE IN GLOBAL ENERGY REVOLUTION

Carbon nanotubes, photovoltaics and the “hydrogen economy” — not exactly household concepts yet. But they are technologies at the forefront of the growing worldwide demand for “green” energy and manufacturing. And lasers are critical to this global revolution.

The Laser Institute of America (LIA), the trusted and respected advocate of cutting-edge applications of laser technology since 1968, will unveil the most up-to-the-minute developments in these and other fields when it gathers industry leaders from around the world at the 28th International Congress on Applications of Lasers and Electro-Optics (ICALEO®).

When ICALEO® kicks off November 2, 2009 at the Hilton located in the WALT DISNEY WORLD® Resort, “green” applications of laser technology will be at the forefront of the conference, which ends November 5th. The plenary session “Frontiers and Challenges for the Green Economy” at 9 a.m. on November 2nd will “unveil to even the most casual observers the necessity, the inevitability, of applying laser technology to the manufacture of solar-energy cells and other environmentally friendly energy solutions,“ says LIA Executive Director Peter Baker. “Lasers more than ever will be vital to helping companies satisfy customer demands for efficient and sustainable energy, while producing consistently high-quality products in the automotive, medical, food and aerospace industries.”

Dr. John Turner, a Research Fellow from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., will give an overview of the future of energy in his keynote address “Frontiers, Opportunities and Challenges for a Hydrogen Economy.” Other topics will include:


* “Lasers — An Enabling Technology in the Photovoltaics Revolution” by Dave Clark, Senior Director, Strategic Marketing, Photovoltaics at Newport Corporation / Spectra-Physics, Mountainview, Calif.

* Progress in high-power diode lasers and industrial applications, as well as opportunities in the solar energy industry. Speaker TBD

* Laser processing of carbon materials, from high-speed diamond film deposition to carbon nanotubes as semiconductor devices, by Dr. Yongfeng Lu, Lott Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“The prospect of lasers in the green energy economy has never looked better,” notes Congress General Chair Xinbing Liu, Director, Panasonic Boston Laboratory, Newton, Mass., USA. “This is the time to turn vision into reality.”

ICALEO has been devoted to the field of laser materials processing for 27 years and is viewed as the premier source of technical information in the field. For more information and to register, please visit the LIA’s ICALEO Web site at http://www.laserinstitute.org/ICALEO.