Test & Measurement Articles

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...

Surface quality has become one of the most poorly understood specifications in the optics industry. A significant portion of the confusion stems from the two major competing (and largely...

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...

All optical spectrometry techniques rely on the measurement of radiant power. The configuration of the instrument varies based on the measurement technique: absorption, emission, luminescence, or...

Designing devices that incorporate ultrathin films is an important means of enhancing yields. However, characterizing ultrathin films provides a challenge for mainstream metrology tools such as...

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...

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...

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...

The use and importance of colorimetry has grown in unison with the increase of global manufacturing and processing. When plastic automotive trim produced on one continent must match a painted metal...

NSOM is suitable for studies on the mesoscopic scale (several tens to hundreds of molecular dimensions). It has become an important tool in research and applications of semiconductors, organic layers...

The scope of optical spectroscopic instrumentation is indeed very broad. Many analytical methods rely on the interaction of radiation with matter and are often described in the context of quantum and...

As system and cable installers try to optimize their links, the preferred method has become high-speed DWDM. This demand for bandwidth has led to the development of new test and measurement...