Hi everyone,

Reporting back from Photonics West, SPIE Show, Moscone Center, SF, CA.  I visited the Show Wednesday, the 30th.  My hope was that possibly more of our management would be in attendance than if I went Thursday.  As it turns out none of our management team were present.  My first stop was the DenseLight Booth where I met with Bryan Patmon, VP Sales & Marketing.  He informed me Suresh was in China, Dr Ring, in the UK, and Tomas Mika just wasn't there.  He couldn't/wouldn't elaborate if with customers or other.  I had the feeling he might not know.  I will say, last year all of our top guys were at the show.  If they were needed elsewhere I'm thinking it might be a good thing.  The Booth looked about the same as last year, maybe a little neater.  Then on to the CAILabs Booth, to hopefully meet Jean-Louise Malinge, but he wasn't there either.  CEO, Jean-Francois Morizur, said he would send regards from a POET/DenseLight shareholder, me, an acquaintance (and shameless namedropper) of Dr Bill Ring.  I really wanted to meet Mr Malinge, as I believe there are some real connections with Dr Ring, Mr Malinge, and Dr Andrew Rickman, of Rockley Photonics.  Dr Rickman, as wonderfully pointed out by our oz4m2, had a feature article in a publication distributed at the Show.  "Is Bigger Better?" about how the miniaturization of components demonstrated in transistor manufacturing doesn't translate to optical chips as the optical components work best when they are the size of the light wavelengths they are using (much larger than the transistors).  He learned this when building a silicon manufacturing process completely optimized for photonics.  Precision and accuracy, at the atom level of roughness, is more important.  That manufacturing process was licensed and adapted by Kotura, Mr Malinge's company, and subsequently Oclaro.  Both Dr Rickman and Dr Ring worked and did research at the University of Surrey, UK.  I am thinking the work POET is doing is being observed closely by Rockley Photonics amongst others in the field.  Rockley Photonics announced, just before the Show, a joint venture with China's Hengtong Optic-Electric to manufacture 100G silicon photonics modules.   Rockley Photonics did not have a Booth at the Show.  I did get to see Daniel Feldman of Luxmux.  He was very enthusiastic about their commercial success, and they are expanding internationally.   He said DenseLight was supplying them with very high-quality components and they were extremely happy with them.  I got to Finisar, still glowing from their Apple contract, and II-VI.  They both make VCSEL's.  One has the Apple contract and one doesn't.  Coherent had a huge Booth as usual.  Really a great show, mostly lasers and associated machines, lenses, and mirrors.  Amazing all the useful applications there are for them.  Kind of funny as I think lasers were invented first, then they figured out what useful purpose(s) they could provide.   One of the guys at our Booth, an electrical engineer, and from Singapore, said he liked working at DenseLight and there was a feeling they were doing important work there.  I asked about the job listings posted on the job board.  He said the work they were doing required qualified people, and Suresh was good to work for.  He was impressed with his knowledge and passion.  Also, I gave a copy of the POETEC Company description that some were concerned with to Bryan.  He said he would check into it and make sure the print-out got to Suresh.  Once again, I ran out of time before I ran out of Show.  Cheers   Bt