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38 articles
Photonics Handbook
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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...
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...
Industrial Lasers: An Introduction to Process Qualification
JOCHEN DEILE AND FRANK GAEBLER, COHERENT INC.
Materials processing with lasers is actually a broad term for a diverse range of applications. The major categories of these uses, and the lasers that service them, are summarized Table 1. At one...
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...
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...
Aspheric Lenses: Optimizing the Design
Jeremy Govier, Edmund Optics Inc.
With the understanding of aspheric lens manufacturing provided in part one of this article, designers have the tools to optimize their aspheres; the next step is to understand how to specify and...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Optical Materials: Double-Sided Lapping and Polishing
Michael Naselaris, Sydor Optics Inc.
Double-sided processing is a batch-type process that uses planetary action — generally with loose, abrasive particles suspended in a liquid vehicle — to abrade material almost equally...
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...
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...
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,”...
Optical Coating: Materials and Deposition Technology
CERAC, Inc., a subsidiary of Williams Advanced Materials; technical assistance from Pellicori Optical Consulting
Optical coatings are deposited as thin-film multilayers of a variety of materials using specific deposition techniques. Coatings are applied to optical components that are intended for use at...
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...
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...
Laser Diodes: Specification Guidelines
Intense Ltd.
While some design engineers know exactly what they need from their laser diode, others may choose a partner to navigate what can be a complex development process. Laser diode manufacturers know which...
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. ...
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...
Connectors and Splices: Correct Alignment Spells Success
Paula Trindell, Tyco Electronics
Just as an electronic connector provides a pluggable connection between electronic circuits, a fiber optic connector provides an optical one. The goal is joining a fiber to a transmitter, receiver or...
Tunable Lasers: Generating Wavelengths from the UV Through the IR
Ian Read, MKS/Spectra-Physics
Applications facilitated by tunable lasers fall into two categories: situations in which one or more discrete wavelengths are not available from any single- or multiline fixed-wavelength laser, or...
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,...
Spectroscopy: The Tools of the Trade
Dr. John R. Gilchrist, Clyde HSI
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...
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...
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...
Nano-Optics: New Rules for Optical Components
Hubert Kostal, NanoOpto Corp.
When physical structures get very small — on the order of molecular or atomic sizes with one or more dimensions on the nanoscale — their behavior and interactions with energy, including...
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...
Polarization Mode Dispersion: Concepts and Measurement
Paul Hernday, Fiber Optic Measurement Training and Consulting
There are three fundamentally different dispersive phenomena in optical fiber, of which polarization mode dispersion (PMD) is the most complex. In digital multimode fiber systems, a light pulse...
Semiconductor Lasers: An Overview of Commercial Devices
JDSU
Laser diodes vary widely in their wavelengths, powers, spectra and beam quality. Yet they share two fundamental components with all other lasers: an optical amplifier and a resonator that confines...
Characterizing High-Speed Transmitters: The Emphasis Is on Waveforms
Greg D. Le Cheminant, Agilent Technologies
An indicator of how well the entire system performs is a measurement called bit-error-ratio (BER). Acceptable BERs range from one error per billion to one per trillion bits transmitted. It is rare...
Polarization in Fiber Systems: Squeezing out More Bandwidth
Steve Yao, General Photonics Corp.
As bit rates increase to meet expanding demand, systems have become increasingly sensitive to polarization-related impairments. These include polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in optical fibers,...
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...
Photonics Handbook
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