Planar Systems, Inc. is a subsidiary of Shenzhen, China-based Leyard Optoelectronic Co. since 2015. It is an alphanumeric display manufacturing corporation with a facility in Hillsboro, Oregon. Founded in 1983 as a spin-off from Tektronix, it had been the primary U.S. manufacturer of electroluminescent (EL) digital displays. Planar currently makes a spread of other specialty displays.
Photonics is the physics of sunshine (photon) generation, detection, and manipulation through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Though covering all light's technical applications over the entire spectrum, most photonic applications are within the range of visible and near-infrared light. The term photonics developed as an outgrowth of the primary practical semiconductor light emitters invented within the early 1960s and optical fibers developed within the 1970s.
