Bennett J. Loudon

Staff writer

Federal grants and other efforts have some thinking Rochester can take advantage of growing technology.

Photonics and related fields account for about 17%2C000 jobs at more than 75 area companies. Finger Lakes region accounts for about 1 percent of global market.

But the local industry is in a period of transition%2C shifting away from big companies to those with fewer resources.

Consumers might not know what photonics is all about, but their world would be much different without it.

There might be no smartphones, high-speed Internet, barcode scanners, wireless game controllers, or many other products, if not for photonics.

The light-based technology allows companies to create smaller, faster and more energy efficient products. While photonics technology has been used for years, much more growth is expected in the industry, creating new and improved products.

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Rochester has a leg up on other areas trying to capitalize on the growing photonics industry.

"Rochester has been, since 1853, since the founding of Bausch + Lomb, the center of the optics industry in the United States," said Paul Ballentine, deputy director of the Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences at the University of Rochester. "We don't want to say we are trying to get on the map, that would be a grave injustice to the community."

In the area, photonics and related fields such as optics and imagining account for about 17,000 jobs at more than 75 companies. Statewide, the industry supports more than 25,000 jobs at 300 companies across New York state. The global market is about $500 billion with the Finger Lakes region accounting for about 1 percent of that market.

The optics industry is "morphing into something more broad called photonics," Ballentine said.

"We have to continue to evolve and get more into opto-electronics and things like that. That is where we have a very concerted effort," Ballentine said.

The effort is tied to President Barack Obama's plan to rebuild manufacturing in the United States. Rochester has competed in three programs so far and has been among the winners in each — receiving millions of dollars in grants and recognition that will likely deliver even more funding and support to the photonics industry. Rochester will be in the running for a fourth and possibly most significant program — the creation of a National Institute for Manufacturing Innovation devoted to optics and photoics.

"We're batting a thousand here," Ballentine said.

Getting noticed

Thomas Battley, executive director of the Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster, said the optics and photonics industries in the area are in a transition period, shifting away from giant manufacturing firms like Eastman Kodak Co., Xerox Corp. and Bausch + Lomb Inc.

The local industry now consists of smaller companies that don't have the same resources or staffing to do the needed research and development. That's why it's important to attract government funding and land new companies to develop the industry, experts say.

"How do we get the nation to recognize that Rochester is not some place that big companies all left, and see it as a place where they ought to make investments and grow?" Battley said. "That's the gold ring right there. That's what we're trying to figure out."

Photonics, along with optics and imaging, have played a significant roles in such industries as manufacturing, communications, information technology, national defense, medicine and energy.

"Whether you're talking about health care, or energy, or computing, you're touching all of these things, and any one of those, you know how enormous it is," said Ryne Raffaelle, vice president for research and associate provost at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Photonics is also the key behind the $4.7 trillion global IT and telecom industry, according to a 2013 report by the National Photonics Initiative.

Nearly all of the data handled by cell phones, cable TV, the Internet, and radio requires photonic technology in lasers, fiber optics, and optical detectors at some point between the source and the destination.

Developments in photonics are expected to lead to a transition from electron-based devices to products and systems that use photons — or light — to operate. This change is expected to make devices that are smaller, much faster and more energy efficient.

RIT and the University of Rochester, among others, are researching future uses of photonics. Meanwhile, dozens of small and mid-sized companies in the area providing components, such as lenses, instruments, and other parts, needed to commercialize and manufacture new optics and photonics products and systems as they are developed.

Local optics companies, where designs for photonics technology are transformed into working products and systems, includes a range of special skills, such as ITT Exelis, Optimax Systems Inc., Corning Tropel, JML Optical, Rochester Precision Optics, and Sydor Optics Inc.

Building the future

Last month, the Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences received a $500,000 grant to fund the development of the New York Photonics Manufacturing Initiative. And Rochester received a manufacturing community designation, giving the region preferential status for economic development grants with an emphasis on the photonics, optics and imaging industry.

While the federal "manufacturing community" designation could draw a portion of $1.3 billion in funding to the region, the $500,000 federal grant to fund the development of the New York Photonics Manufacturing Initiative will help layout a blueprint for Rochester's future role in the field.

The plan will identify the major manufacturing challenges facing the photonics industry, develop a public-private consortium to advance photonics and optics manufacturing and a plan for creating a new generation of photonics products in New York.

In 2012, the Rochester Regional Optics, Photonics, and Imaging Accelerator Program was created with a $1.88 million federal grant to help speed up the growth of 50 small and medium-sized optics, photonics and imaging companies in the Rochester region, using the resources from High Tech Rochester, the UR, the Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster, RIT and Monroe Community College.

The state also is contributing $200,000 to the effort, along with another $700,000 being contributed by private organizations.

The 50 companies in the program started with an annual employment growth rate of about 5.5 percent. The goal of the program is to increase that rate to 7.5 percent, and paving the way for double-digit growth in the next decade and attract more companies in the industry to the area.

The accelerator program will include networking events, workshops and seminars, an increased presence at trade shows, market research, and collaborative research. Participating companies are getting evaluations from business professionals and recommendations for improvements. There will be programs to improve manufacturing processes, and strengthen sales efforts. And UR, RIT and MCC will work together to develop new training programs for workers.

Raffaelle, the former director of the National Center for Photovoltaics at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo., said he expects that the federal designation will have a recognizable impact on economic development.

"It's interesting the way those things can effect the way in which regions evolve and funding flows. Historically, when the government has designated something a national center they don't do that lightly. There's usually a lot of stuff that goes into achieving a designation and that's the way people come to view those areas and that's where they end up going," he said.

BLOUDON@DemocratandChronicle.com

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What is photonics?

Photonics is a technology that will use light to allow computer chips, senors and other devices to communicate more quickly among each other, leading to smaller components and other things.

In use already

Lasers with photonic technology that cut parts for the automobile industry has increased production to about 100 parts per hour and costs to below $1.25 per piece.

Photonics is the key technology behind the $4.7 trillion global telecom and IT industry.

Future uses

Solid-state lighting developed through photonics research could cut electricity usage from lighting in half in the U.S. by 2030, saving $30 billion and reduce emissions equivalent to 40 million cars.

Also, silicon photonic computer chips are being developing that will allow for faster downloads of digital files, such as HD movies and other items.