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73 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...
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...
Measuring Aspheres: Selecting the Best Technique
Amy Frantz, Edmund Optics Inc.
The benefits of aspheric lenses are numerous: They allow for a reduction in spherical aberrations and are ideal for focusing or collimating light, as they can achieve a low ƒ-number. Aspheres...
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...
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...
Measuring Surface Roughness: The Benefits of Laser Confocal Microscopy
ROBERT BELLINGER, Evident
When evaluating the surface of a component, surface roughness can be assessed by eye or by rubbing it with a fingertip. Common expressions include “shiny,” “lusterless and...
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...
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...
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...
Flat Optics: Considerations When Buying
Michael Naselaris, Sydor Optics Inc.
Flat optics generally perform three main functions: They transmit light (windows), reflect light (mirrors), and fold light (prisms). While most optical manufacturers make spherical and flat optics, a...
Aspheric Lenses: Design Considerations
Jeremy Govier, Edmund Optics Inc.
Aspheric surfaces are powerful tools that combine the optical corrections of multiple lenses into a single element (Figure 1) and affect performance in ways that spherical optics cannot. For example,...
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...
Understanding Surface Quality: A Practical Guide
John C. Smith, Rocky Mountain Instrument Co. (RMI)
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...
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...
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...
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,”...
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...
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,...
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...
Vibration Control: Limiting Mechanical Noise
MKS/Newport
In general, there are three common approaches to reducing mechanical excitation of photonic systems. The first is identifying the sources of vibration and implementing ways to eliminate or reduce...
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...
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...
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...
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’...
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...
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...
Adhesives for Fiber Optics Assembly: Making the Right Choice
Edward A.Y. Fisher, Henkel Corp.
Adhesives for fiber optic components that perform well on glass, metal, ceramic and most plastic substrates provide excellent chemical and solvent resistance. They also can act as an electrical...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Component Choices: Avoiding Tolerancing Mistakes
Warren J. Smith, Rockwell Collins Optronics
To the novice or casual user of optics, the acquisition of an optical system can be a very difficult experience. Failure to understand the ground rules can result in unnecessarily high cost, late...
Optical Coatings: Improving Traditional Technology
Arthur T. Howe, CHROMATEL; Mervyn Davis, Nordiko Technical Services Ltd.; and David Pearson, Pearsonics Ltd.
The common polycrystalline materials used for optical thin-film materials do not satisfy the requirements of telecommunications because of the instabilities caused by moisture absorption in their...
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...
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...
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...
Lens Aberrations: Avoiding Defects in Imagery
Bruce H. Walker, Walker Associates
A lens collects light from a point on an object and focuses it to a corresponding conjugate point on an image. Under most conditions, the lens fails at this task because of some error in 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...
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...
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