First we would like to say "congratulations" to all involved in bringing these patents to issuance.  It has been a good week for patents here at the OTT as we have received 2 this week, US 7,612,880 and US 7,612,935

US 7,612,880  springs from the mind of Optical Sciences Professor Russell Chipman for a diagnostic tool that has applications as diverse as crystal analysis, surveillance, and detecting early stage macular degeneration and glaucoma.  The invention quantifies the way in which a substance scatters 16 states of fully polarized light, by detecting the degree of  "depolarization" of that light.  The reduction from fully polarized light to partially polarized light can be due to variations in the object below the resolution of the imaging system.  This new tool uses polarization effects to induce contrast in otherwise transparent tissues, which reveals the sub-pixel information.  You can view its Technology Summary here: http://ottweb.web.arizona.edu/techs/retinal-polarimetry-discriminating-algorithms

US 7,612,935 provides a method and a device to characterize ultra-short optical pulses at telecommunication wavelengths that have durations of picoseconds or femtoseconds. This patent is entitled “Third-order optical autocorrelator for time-domain operation at the telecommunication wavelengths" and was invented by researchers in the College of Optical Sciences. It is based on a thin film, optically transparent, organic material in which efficient third-harmonic generation occurs when the material is excited by ultrafast pulses.  You can view its Technology Summary here: http://ottweb.web.arizona.edu/techs/third-order-ultrafast-optical-pulse-diagnostics-fiber-optic-tele...

The OTT is seeking potential licensees interested in licensing these technologies for commercial development.