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| B6: Diffusion
Pathways for ATP-Funded Photonics Technologies |
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Highlights
from presentation on "Diffusion Pathways for Photonics Technologies,"
by Todd Watkins and Theodore Schlie
Photonics is the
combination of light and electronics
- Photonics technologies
are enabling technologies. Applications include:
- Communications
(fiber optics).
- Computers (displays, storage devices, and scanners).
- Manufacturing (laser machining and sensors).
- Medical (laser surgery, imaging, and biophotonics).
- The photonics
industry is large and growing rapidly.
- The photonics
industry had worldwide sales of about $150B in late 1990s, comparable
in size to the semiconductor industry or aircraft industry.
- The photonics
market grew approximately 20 percent per year in the 1990s.
- Market projections
indicate that growth is accelerating.
- Diffusion of technology
depends heavily on personal communications.
- Geographic and
social distance lead to clusters of diffusion.
- Diffusion of Displaytech's
ATP-funded technology is strongly tied to the University of Colorado
and strongly concentrated geographically. Universities are often nodes
of diffusion.
- Displaytech,
which produces microdisplays or "displays on a chip," was founded
in 1984 on the basis of technology developed at University of Colorado,
Boulder.
- Twenty-five of
thirty-two Displaytech
patents resulted from projects that received federal funding.
- Twenty-five percent
of patent citations to Displaytech
patents come from companies with known links to the University of
Colorado.
- One-third of
the patent citations to Displaytech
by U.S. companies are from companies in Colorado; another one-third
of the patent citations to Displaytech
by U.S. companies are from northern California.
- Nearly half of
all scientific publications citing Displaytech
are by authors affiliated with the University of Colorado.
Date created: September
2001
Last updated:
June 23, 2003
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