Feature

Boulder Emerges as New Optics Hub in the West

Michael Wenyon

Boulder, Colorado, was an emerging center for optics and optics-based research even before two Boulder scientists shared last year’s Nobel Prize in physics for their work on Bose-Einstein condensation. During the past twenty years, the city has become a magnet for optics engineers and scientists. “None of my students ever seem to leave,” says Carl Wieman, one of the Nobel laureates and a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Instead, they move into research, start companies, or take up positions at one of the many high-tech optics businesses that have grown up locally or moved into the area.