Register
Sign In
Suppliers
Products
Categories
Handbook
Dictionary
Careers
Resources
Photonics Spectra
BioPhotonics
Vision Spectra
Virtual Events & Summits
Educational Institutions
Add/Update Your Listing
Exhibitor Listing Portal
Become an Exhibitor
Buyers' Guide Print Edition
Marketplace Help
Subscribe
Advertise
Suppliers
Products
Categories
Handbook
Dictionary
Careers
Resources
Photonics Spectra
BioPhotonics
Vision Spectra
Virtual Events & Summits
Educational Institutions
Add/Update Your Listing
Exhibitor Listing Portal
Become an Exhibitor
Buyers' Guide Print Edition
Marketplace Help
Register
Sign In
Photonics Marketplace
Suppliers
Products
Handbook
Institutions
Dictionary
Show Filters
Hide Filters
Sections
Coatings
Communications
Fiber Optics
Imaging
Lasers
Light Sources
Materials
Microscopy
Optics
Positioning
Sensors & Detectors
Spectroscopy
Test & Measurement
General Reference
50 articles
Photonics Handbook
Clear All Filters x
cameras x
Machine Vision Cameras: Making the Right Selection
GLEN AHEARN, TELEDYNE DALSA
Technological advances have resulted in new, higher-quality sensors that enable machine vision cameras to deliver greater features and functionality at a lower cost than ever before. These factors...
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),...
Digital Cameras: Smaller Pixels for Higher Resolution
Albert Theuwissen, DALSA Professional Imaging
In the search for ever-higher pixel counts for the digital still camera, it is clear that, if chip size remains constant, then “more pixels” means “smaller pixels.” The...
Diffraction Gratings: Selection Guidelines
David Ventola, Optometrics Corp., an Omega Optical Holdings company
Diffraction gratings are optical components with a periodic structure that separate light into beams traveling in predictable directions based on their wavelength. The grating acts as the dispersive...
What Is Photonics?
Photonics Media Editors
Photonics is the study of light and other types of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The impact of photonics on research, technology, navigation, culture, astronomy, forensics, and...
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...
Superresolution Microscopy: An Imaging Revolution
Marie Freebody, Contributing Editor
Superresolution optical microscopy, for which the Nobel Prize was awarded to Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William Moerner in 2014, has been one of the most momentous developments in the life...
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...
Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging: Choosing the Best Approach
GERHARD HOLST, Excelitas PCO GmbH
The term fluorescence is often applied as a synonym for photoluminescence, although luminescence actually covers fluorescence and phosphorescence. Both of these terms describe the process of...
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...
Measuring Small-Beam MFD: Overcoming the Challenges
DERRICK PETERMAN, PhD, MKS Ophir
Profiling beams under 10 µm in size is one of the more challenging beam profiling applications. There are numerous reasons for this, including the very small size. Focal plane arrays commonly...
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...
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...
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...
Plastic Optics: Specifying Injection-Molded Polymer Optics
William S. Beich, GS PLASTIC OPTICS
The use of precision polymer optics is becoming an increasing necessity today as products demand sophisticated light handling components to achieve desired results. Polymer optics can be thought of...
Passive Athermalization: Maintaining Optical Performance Over Temperature
Janos Engineering, Janos Technology LLC
For rotationally symmetric optical systems, either the lens or the detector moves along the optical axis to maintain optical performance. If the compensating axial motion is accomplished without the...
Common Infrared Optical Materials and Coatings: A Guide to Properties, Performance, and Applications
Jeffrey L. Tosi and Kumar M. Khajurivala, Janos Technology LLC
The optical materials selected for an optical system depend upon the application, the required system performance and the environment in which the system is to perform; thus the materials’...
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...
Interferometry: Measuring with Light
Zygo Corporation
An interferometer is an instrument that compares the position or surface structure of two objects. The basic two-beam division of amplitude interferometer components consists of a light source, a...
Ultraviolet Reflectance Imaging: Applications
Dr. Austin Richards, Oculus Photonics
Reflected-ultraviolet imaging is a rather mysterious area of the imaging field. There is relatively little actual UV imagery to be found on the Internet or in the literature compared to near-infrared...
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),...
Laser Beam Measurement: Slit-Based Profilers for Pulsed Beams
Allen M. Cary, Photon Inc.
Measuring pulsed-beam lasers has generally required the use of a CCD array profiler. This is a reasonable solution for low-power lasers in the UV and visible wavelength range, but these require...
Beryllium Mirrors: Refinements Enable New Applications
Vladimir Vudler and Peter Richard, Hardric Laboratories, Inc.
With a specific gravity of 1.85 g/cm3, beryllium is the lightest metal that is workable. It is 45 percent lighter than aluminum and approximately five times as stiff. Its stiffness to weight ratio...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Camera Resolution: Combining Detector and Optics Performance
Gerald C. Holst, JCD Publishing
Camera resolution depends upon the optical blur diameter and the detector size. Schade combined these to create an equivalent resolution that is a function of Fλ/d where F is the focal ratio,...
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...
Microassembly: Minimizing Error and Maximizing Precision
Bruce Fiala, Wright Industries
Progressive assembly operations such as guiding, gluing and bonding often take place around a static package in three-dimensional space. Integrating the different mechanical systems to ensure that...
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....
Imaging Colorimetry: Accuracy in Display and Light Source Metrology
Ron Rykowski and Hubert Kostal, Radiant Imaging, Inc.
The market for flat panel displays (FPDs) has undergone tremendous growth, driven mostly by increased demand for televisions, cell phones, computers, digital cameras and MP3 players. Similarly,...
Optical System Design: Keeping the Coatings in Mind
JDSU
An optical coating engineer is frequently confronted with a difficult specification for a coating. Often the difficulty in the specification results from the particular form of the optical system. If...
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...
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...
Dynamic Interferometry: Getting Rid of the Jitters
John Hayes and James Millerd, 4D Technology Corporation
Conditions on the factory floor and in industrial cleanrooms with high-capacity air filtration systems can hamper the use of interferometry. Another problem is the testing of large-aperture mirrors...
Optical Objective Systems: A Schematic Guide
Warren J. Smith, Rockwell Collins Optronics
Simple Meniscus Lens The simple meniscus lens is almost universally used in inexpensive cameras. To get an image of good quality it must be used with a separate aperture stop, reducing the...
Global Optimization: A Tool for Successful Design
Thomas G. Kuper and Thomas I. Harris, Optical Research Associates
Some efforts in global optimization research for optical design center around probabilistic methods such as global search. While promising for small problems with few variables, these methods...
Particle Image Velocimetry: Basics, Developments and Techniques
M. Kelnberger, InnoLas GmbH; G. Schwitzgebel, Universität Mainz
Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is an experimental tool in fluid mechanics and aerodynamics. The basic principle involves photographic recording of the motion of microscopic particles that follow...
SWIR Imaging: An Industrial Processing Tool
Sensors Unlimited Inc., A Collins Aerospace company
Imaging has long been used in industrial processes to measure, monitor, control, or otherwise manage the production of goods. The challenge to the process designer is to develop a tool that captures...
Machine Vision Lighting: A First-Order Consideration
SCHOTT North America, Inc., Fiber Optics
In the beginning, automated inspection focused on the camera and optics, the algorithms, the interface hardware and the processor. Only rarely was attention paid to the lighting system or lighting...
Adaptive Optics: Taming Atmospheric Turbulence
Tom Gonsiorowski, Adaptive Optics Associates, Inc., a Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Systems
To Isaac Newton the problem was clear, and in 1704 he realized the effects of atmospheric turbulence on image formation. Just as heat waves shimmering above a hot patch of ground can distort our...
Photonics Handbook
Need Help?
Explore Our Content
News
Features
Latest Products
Webinars
White Papers
All Things Photonics Podcast
Videos
Our Summits & Conferences
Industry Events
Bookstore
Join Our Community
Subscribe
Advertise
Become a member
Sign in
Contribute a Feature
Suggest a Webinar
Submit a Press Release
Mobile Apps
About Us
Our Company
Our Publications
Contact Us
Career Opportunities
Teddi C. Laurin Scholarship
Terms & Conditions
Privacy Policy
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
©2024 Photonics Media
100 West St.
Pittsfield, MA, 01201 USA
[email protected]
We use cookies to improve user experience and analyze our website traffic as stated in our
Privacy Policy
. By using this website, you agree to the use of
cookies
unless you have disabled them.