The NYS Center for Advanced Technology at the City University of New York is funded through the NYS Foundation for Science Technology and Innovation. Since its inception in 1993, the CUNY CAT has leveraged this funding with industrial, federal and institutional support to accomplish its mission: to develop and disseminate knowledge in photonics related technology in order to promote New York economic development for the medical, biological, industrial and military sectors.

The CAT has accomplished these goals by drawing on its outstanding and well recognized research and development capabilities in such areas as: optical medical diagnostic techniques, tunable solid state lasers, optical imaging, semiconductor growth and characterization, nanoscale photonic materials, and compact photonic devices. We briefly present a few of the technological contributions of the CAT program:

Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Using Minimally/Non-Invasive Optical Techniques.  Techniques include spectroscopic techniques for minimally invasive early detection of cervical, prostate, oral, gastrointestinal and skin cancers and breast cancer imaging technology that uses safe ultrafast lasers to see deep into the breast. The former technique has advanced to the stage where prototype instruments are being prepared for clinical trials. These efforts have been funded in part by US Army research grants.

Detection of cracks and corrosion under paint.  This work, funded in part by Lockheed Martin Corp., has led to prototype detection devices for use on airplane wings.

Bacteria and Virus Detection for Homeland Defense.
This technology, which recognizes spectroscopic signatures of bacteria and viruses, was funded in part by Northrop Grumman and NASA.

Contactless Characterization of Semiconductor Wafers.  
This technology led to a successful NYS spin-off company, Semiconductor Characterization Instruments, with cumulative sales of nearly $4M and high-profile customers like TRW and Nortel.

PDF version / Printable version