| What is Photonics? Photonics (also known as opto-electronics) is a growing area of technology based on the use of light as a means of communicating information. This medium has a particular application in telecommunications where it could provide the high speed switching mechanisms capable of handling high volume traffic within data networks. The technology also has a number of application areas in sensors e.g. monitoring movements in structures. The technology has given rise to a number of small firms developing specialist applications ranging from the laser technologies that produce the light pulse through to the software that manages the application. As specialist firms in a fast changing environment there are pressures for these companies to work outside their own corporate boundaries especially in sharing facilities and expertise that would be unaffordable individually. These disparate applications developed by specialist companies are typically put together as integrated systems by much larger companies who provide total solutions to telecommunications service providers and other end user markets. These companies have tended to acquire successful technology leaders when appropriate. This industry is still at a stage of development where significant amounts of basic science is still being pulled from the science base for solving application development problems. Consequently, there is a significant relationship with the science base as represented by key universities.   |