<p>A team of three IBM scientists - James J. Wynne , Rangaswamy Srinivasan and Samuel Blum will receive the US National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Barack Obama for their development of excimer lasers in medicine.</p><p>The award, which represents IBM's tenth National Medal of Technology and Innovation and will be made personally by the US President, recognizes the impact that excimer lasers have made in medical procedures.</p><p>One of the best-known of those applications is "LASIK" refractive laser eye surgery although this approach has since been superseded by ultrafast femtosecond pulse lasers and "personalized" refractive surgery that corrects sight defects with even higher precision.</p><p>IBM has itself benefited more directly from the development of excimer lasers for lithography applications. Such lasers are still the mainstay light source used in the optical lithography stepper systems that have been instrumental in maintaining the rule of Moore's law and the advance of semiconductor technology though this is set to change in the future as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography begins to make an impact.</p><p><a href="http://optics.org/news/3/12/36">Keep reading...</a></p>