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70 articles
Photonics Handbook
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Fiber Lasers: Continuing to Power Growth
Bryce Samson, IPG Photonics Corporation
Early fiber lasers were inefficient and limited to low powers, until more effective methods emerged to deliver the pump light into the cladding. Valentin Gapontsev, founder and CEO of IPG Photonics,...
Scatter and BSDF Measurements: Theory and Practice
Richard Pfisterer, Photon Engineering LLC
Except for direct illumination from the sun, laser, or other light source, everything we see or detect is ultimately scattered light. Light can be scattered or rescattered during its propagation to...
Detectors: Options for Low-Light Applications
SLAWOMIR PIATEK AND EARL HERGERT, HAMAMATSU CORPORATION
Developed in the early 1990s, the silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) is a solid-state photodetector whose sensitivity to light rivals that of a photomultiplier tube (PMT) in a regime where a few hundred...
Optical System Optimization: Analyzing the Effects of Stray Light
Richard Pfisterer, Photon Engineering LLC
Electrical engineers are very familiar with the effects of shot noise, thermal noise, flicker noise and crosstalk, and recognize how these effects can reduce the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in their...
Silicon Photonics: Light Is the Ultimate Medium for High-Speed Communications
Christophe Kopp, Ségolène Olivier, and Stéphane Bernabé, CEA-LETI
Silicon photonics is widely considered a key enabling technology for further development of optical interconnect solutions needed to address growing traffic on the internet. From the first submarine...
Polarization-Based Imaging: Basics and Benefits
XING-FEI HE, TELEDYNE DALSA
There are three fundamental properties of light: intensity, wavelength, and polarization. Almost all cameras today are designed for monochrome or color imaging. A monochrome camera is used to measure...
QCL Primer: History, Characteristics, Applications
Hamamatsu Corporation
Since its first successful operation in 1960 at Hughes Research Labs, the laser technology has been at the center of innovation and research. Semiconductor lasers first made their appearance in 1962...
Tunable Light Sources: A Popular Choice for Measurement Applications
VICKI LU and JOHN PARK, PhD, MKS/Newport
Many common spectroscopic measurements require the coordinated operation of a detection instrument and light source, as well as data acquisition and processing. Integration of individual components...
Nanopositioning: A Step Ahead
Scott Jordan, Brian Lula, and Stefan Vorndran, PI (Physik Instrumente) LP
By its original definition, a nanopositioning device is a mechanism capable of repeatedly delivering motion in increments as small as one nanometer. Lately demands from industry and research have...
Microscopy Illumination: Considering Nonlaser Light Sources
BARBARA FOSTER, THE MICROSCOPY & IMAGING PLACE INC.
As recently as five years ago, shopping for a microscope light source was fairly straightforward. For routine applications, it was tungsten halogen, typically 100 W, while for fluorescence, it was an...
Laser Measurement Systems: Best Practices
JOHN MCCAULEY, MKS Ophir
Given the pace at which technology advances, there always seems to be a learning curve. With the abundance of consumer electronics available, there typically is no right or wrong way to use these...
Fiber Optics: Understanding the Basics
Engineering and Marketing Staff, OFS
Optical fibers are made from either glass or plastic. Most are roughly the diameter of a human hair, and they may be many miles long. Light is transmitted along the center of the fiber from one end...
Selecting a Photodetector: Using WITS$ as a Rough Guide
Earl Hergert and Slawomir Piatek, Hamamatsu Corporation
Light is a versatile tool for investigating physical and chemical processes in nature. Any specific system being analyzed may, through the light it emits or reflects, communicate information about...
Laser Safety: Important Considerations
Ken Barat, Laser Safety Solutions
When purchasing an industrial laser system, the astute buyer will look for a Class 1 laser product — a system where the laser beam hazard is completely enclosed and there is no potential laser...
Optical Design Software: Fundamentals and Potential
Richard Pfisterer, Photon Engineering LLC
Optical design software allows the user to develop a configuration of optical elements that manipulate the trajectory of light for the purposes of creating an image, illuminating a target, coupling...
Laser Operation: Temperature Control and Mount Selection
Paul Corr and Patrick Klima, Arroyo Instruments LLC
As you operate your laser, only a portion of the electrical power sourced from your laser driver converts to light energy. The remainder turns to heat, and the buildup of that thermal energy presents...
Lasers for Microscopy: Major Trends
Marco Arrigoni, Nigel Gallaher, Darryl McCoy, Volker Pfeufer, Matthias Schulze, and Daniel Callen, Coherent Inc.
Laser development for the microscopy market continues to be driven by key trends in applications, which currently include superresolution techniques, multiphoton applications in optogenetics and...
Powering Lasers: Evaluating Bench Power Supplies
Paul Corr and Patrick Klima, Arroyo Instruments LLC
A bench power supply should be thoroughly tested and characterized before it is used to power a laser. The quality of the controls and safety measures incorporated into a bench supply will need to be...
Detectors: Guideposts on the Road to Selection
Earl Hergert, Hamamatsu Corporation
Any number of medical, industrial, and analytical applications requires the detection of light. Chemiluminescence, bioluminescence, fluorescence, and atomic absorption are just a few, and all require...
Diode-Pumped Lasers: Performance, Reliability Enhance Applications
Arnd Krueger and Scott White, MKS/Spectra-Physics
Neodymium-doped crystals and glasses such as Nd:YAG (neodymium:yttrium aluminum garnet) have long been used as laser gain materials. Optically pumped, they produce an output wavelength close to 1...
Excimer Optics: High Power Demands High Reliability
Michael A. Case, Teledyne Princeton Instruments, Business Unit of Teledyne Technologies
The first high-reflectance mirror coatings for the UV and vacuum UV (VUV) were of the Al + MgF2 type produced in the late 1950s. Coatings of this design are still used today for multigas cavity...
Lasers: Understanding the Basics
Coherent Inc.
Over 60 years have passed since the first demonstration of a laser in 1960. After the initial spark of interest, lasers were for a while categorized as “a solution waiting for a problem,”...
Thin-Film Coatings: A Buyers' Guide
Trey Turner and Roger Kirschner, Research Electro-Optics Inc. (REO)
What are thin-film coatings? The purpose of any optical thin-film coating is to modify the transmittance and reflectance properties of the substrate material to which they are applied. Most coatings...
Integrating Spheres: Collecting and Uniformly Distributing Light
Greg McKee, Labsphere Inc.
An integrating sphere’s function is to spatially integrate radiant flux (light). However, before one can optimize a sphere design for a particular application, it is important to understand how...
Light-Emitting Diodes: A Primer
Opto Diode Corporation, An ITW company
The wavelength range of commercially available LEDs with single-element output power of at least 5 mW is 275 to 950 nm. Each wavelength range is made from a specific semiconductor material family,...
Optical Delay Lines: Key to Time-Resolved Measurements
MKS/Newport
One of the most critical elements of any time-resolved spectroscopy and dynamics experiment is the optical delay line. A typical optical delay line consists of a retroreflector or folding mirrors on...
Excimer Lasers: Photonic Stamps with Micron Resolution
Coherent, Inc.
Excimers are pulsed gas lasers that deliver high output power and pulse energies in the ultraviolet and deep-ultraviolet wavelengths. This enables them to power applications that cannot be supported...
Detectors: CCDs for Life-Science Applications
Butch Moomaw, Hamamatsu Corporation, Systems Div.
Since their invention in the late 1960s, charge-coupled devices, also called CCDs, have found widespread use in imaging applications. Electronic cameras based on CCD technology are used in...
Laser Perforation: The Diffractive Beamsplitter Advantage
Moshe Bril, Holo/Or Ltd.
The basic setup in laser perforation includes a pulsed laser, a lens and either a moving mirror, a rotating web or both. Each laser pulse creates a hole in the material. During the blank time in...
Detectors: The Charge Injection Alternative
Tony Chapman, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., CIDTEC Cameras & Imagers
Charged-injection device imagers are metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) detectors that can be fabricated using PMOS, NMOS and CMOS integrated circuit technology, and may be configured as a...
Positioning System Performance: Understanding the Rules
MKS/Newport
Abbe Error — Linear off-axis errors introduced by angular deviations coupled to a moment arm at the point of interest on stage mounted devices (θ in Figure 1). The effect of Abbe error...
OTDRs: Finding the Weak Spots in Fiber Links
Michel Leclerc and Vincent Racine, EXFO
An optical time-domain reflectometer sends short pulses of light into a fiber and measures its reflections as a function of time. The delay of these reflections to the detector as well as their...
Image Intensification: The Technology of Night Vision
Harry P. Montoro, ITT Night Vision
Image intensification, the basis of night vision, is a complex conversion of energy particles that occurs within a vacuum tube. An image-intensifier system works by collecting photons through an...
Rules of Thumb
Photonics Rules of Thumb Scientists and engineers tend to want to answer simple relational questions with a blackboard covered with equations, even when questioners just want a rough estimate to...
Photometry: The Answer to How Light Is Perceived
Photo Research, Inc.
That portion of the spectrum that the eye can see — and its rainbow of colors — is rather small, covering approximately 360 to 830 nm. What colors we perceive depends on wavelength, while...
Photonics Packaging: Optical Communication Components
Torsten Wipiejewski, VNT Management Oy, German Office
Photonic components are key elements for the information technology (IT). Photonics technology covers the generation of information (cameras, sensors), its transportation (optical communication),...
Nd:YAG Lasers: Standing the Test of Time
Quantel USA
The ubiquitous Nd:YAG laser has played many roles over the years. For the military, it has provided rangefinding and target designation capabilities. When used with nonlinear optics or as a pump...
Photonic Component Manufacturing: Moving Toward Automation
Bruce W. Hueners and Michael K. Formica, Palomar Technologies
Manufacturing the laser diode is complicated by the existence of multiple proprietary techniques and intellectual property barriers together with complex device physics and unique materials. ...
Digital Still Cameras: The Changing Face of Imaging
Morio Onoe, Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo
The digital camera represents an integration of optics, mechanics and electronics consisting of three layers (Figures 1a, b and c). The top and the middle layers are printed circuit boards (PCBs),...
High-Speed Video: Selecting a Slow-Motion Imaging System
Andrew Bridges, Photron USA, Inc.
There is a growing market for imaging systems that provides an immediate, slow-motion view of a process that allows one to see events that happen too quickly for the human eye to perceive or...
Detector Arrays: Taming the Irregular Shape Problem
Gerald C. Holst, JCD Publishing
If we were to estimate the output of a CCD or thermal camera, we would typically draw an image over the detectors, aligning the image with the detector axes. We show it this way because it’s...
Hyperspectral Imaging Spectroscopy: A Look at Real-Life Applications
Dr. John R. Gilchrist, Clyde HSI; Timo Hyvärinen, Spectral Imaging Ltd.
Hyperspectral imaging spectroscopy has developed dramatically from a large, complex, remote-sensing satellite- or aircraft-based system into a rugged, compact, economically priced imaging and...
Illumination Design and Analysis Software: A Vital Tool in the Designer’s Kit
Breault Research Organization, Inc.
Illumination design has developed rapidly to include not only automotive headlamps and street lamps, but also backlit displays, fluorescent panel lighting, light-emitting diode or laser sources, and...
Quantifying Light: Intensity, Uniformity Hold the Key
Steven Giamundo, Fiberoptics Technology, Inc.
Intensity and uniformity can be described using different physical attributes, which makes interpreting requirements somewhat confusing. This article intends to provide an explanation and serve as a...
Radiation Tolerances: Effects on CID Imaging Devices
Tony Chapman, Thermo Fisher Scientific, CIDTEC Cameras & Imagers
Like other CTDs, the CID imager uses hundreds of thousands (up to 4 million) pixel elements to capture optical images, and converts the light into an electronic charge which may be displayed on a...
Image Processing: Turning Digital Data into Useful Information
William Silver, Cognex Corp.
Images are produced by many means: cameras, x-ray machines, electron microscopes, radar and ultrasound. They are used in the entertainment, medical, scientific and business industries; for security...
Diamond Machining: Ultraprecision Machine Technology
Engineering Staff, AMETEK Precitech, Inc.
Ultraprecision machining can be defined in general terms as the removal of material from a substrate utilizing a machine tool that operates at a resolution of 10 nm (0.4 μin.) or less. The...
Radiometry: A Simplified Description of Light Measurement
Angelo V. Arecchi, Labsphere, Inc.
Radiometry involves several activities. The two most common are the description and measurement of optical radiation, and, starting with the knowledge of some aspects of optical radiation at one...
Infrared Spectral Selection: It Begins with the Detector
Austin Richards, FLIR Systems, Commercial Vision Systems
Spectral selection is a powerful tool that enhances conventional imaging tremendously. Most imaging systems, including the human eye, are designed to image light over a broad range of the spectrum....
Heat Control and Lighting Systems Design: Optical Coatings Separate Light from Heat
Eric Krisl, Deposition Sciences Inc.
Controlling and minimizing heat output is desirable in most lighting applications. For example, conventional incandescent light sources are very inefficient with only a small portion of the...
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