From Beginnings to Breakthroughs: Photonics Spectra's Spectroscopy Summit Premieres March 12
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Photovoltaic Test Performance
The sun’s energy is abundant, and turning it into electrical power is not only good for the environment but also good business. In 2007, solar modules capable of producing approximately 3700 MW of energy were manufactured, resulting in about $30 billion worth of installed systems worldwide. Most installers of photovoltaics will not set up modules that have not passed stringent qualification tests and that have not had their peak watt independently rated. Therefore, representative samples are...
Photonics Spectra, June 2008
Precise Positional Adjustments with Laser-Induced Shock Waves
The trend in manufacturing today is to make everything smaller. Electronic gadgets, mechanical devices — everything is shrinking. Examples that come to mind are tiny microelectromechanical systems accelerometers built into automotive seat belts,...
Photonics Spectra, June 2008
Quality Down to the Last Detail
Today’s automobile manufacturing plants bear little resemblance to those in use less than a generation ago. Assembly robots now adapt the position of car body parts to each other before fitting, taking into account geometry variations of each piece...
Photonics Spectra, June 2008
Quantum Dots Created from Carbon Nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes are proving useful for sensing applications because they produce a strong Raman signal and make a detectable sound when hit with a laser. Nanotubes fluoresce as well, but not brightly. However, researchers have discovered that...
Photonics Spectra, June 2008
Shock Waves: Faster Than the Speed of Sound
A high-speed camera is a necessary tool for studying phenomena such as flying projectiles and explosions. In the case of explosions, dramatic pressure increases result in strong pressure waves, commonly referred to as shock waves (Figure 1). These...
Photonics Spectra, June 2008
Simultaneous Ultrafast Framing and Streak Imaging
The ability to record framing and streak images simultaneously has long been a requirement in the research fields of electrical discharge, biomedical research and other applications. Early systems incorporating framing and streak cameras were large...
Photonics Spectra, June 2008
Socks with Nanosilver Could Present Problems
The saying “It all comes out in the wash” could take on a whole new meaning as nanoparticles become more common in consumer goods. Using scanning and transmission electron microscopy, Troy M. Benn and Paul K. Westerhoff of Arizona State University...
Photonics Spectra, June 2008
Strategically Placed Cameras Track Pharmaceuticals
Manufacturing of pharmaceuticals is an important and evolving industry. With the advent of globalization and the influx of counterfeit products, the development of new technologies such as e-pedigrees (secure files that store data about each move a...
Photonics Spectra, June 2008
Through a Lens, Wetly
If you want a variable lens in the future, you may have to get wet. That is the hope of several researchers and companies that are working on liquid lenses, devices that use water or another liquid as an optical element. These systems employ a...
Photonics Spectra, June 2008
‘Giant’ Nanoparticles May Offer Improved Performance
Although nanocrystal quantum dots offer a host of advantages and continue to be explored for a range of imaging applications, these tiny optical probes do come with some baggage. They are, for instance, prone to changes in their quantum yield,...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Another Way to Build a Better White Light
When it comes to replacing today’s white lights, don’t count out solid-state light-emitting electrochemical cells. Researchers from National Taiwan University in Taipei recently demonstrated that cells based on cationic transition metal complexes...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Array of Tiny Quantum Cascade Lasers Provides Tunable Mid-IR Output
Unlike the near-infrared and visible spectral ranges, where diode lasers provide compact and reliable sources, the mid-infrared range — 3 to 15 μm — lacks good lasers. A breakthrough in this area occurred with the demonstration of the quantum...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Caution: Beam Crossing Ahead
There are times when a laser beam must cross between tables or must even travel from one room to another. This presents an interesting traffic flow and safety challenge to both the laser safety officer and the laser user. Fortunately, there are...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Cavity Leak-Out Spectroscopy Aids Ethane Detection
Ethane is an important chemical that is used in several industrial processes, such as the manufacturing of ethylene, but it also is an important biomarker for human health. Trace amounts of the odorless gas are created as a by-product of oxidative...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Economic Challenges for Machine Vision
If you produce it, will customers buy it? As with other firms, machine vision companies are wondering how the products they manufacture will sell in the current economy. The concern is well justified; although machine vision products historically...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Focusing High-Power, Single-Mode Laser Beams
New generations of thin-disk and fiber lasers are combining excellent beam quality — M2 typically between 1.2 and ∼8 — with kilowatts output power. This combination brings the performance of beam-forming optics into question.1, 2 In...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
FPGA TRAINING
Matrox Imaging offers online field-programmable gate array (FPGA) training programs. They are intended for software developers who need to interface, control and create array configurations with the company’s hardware and software products — the...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
High-Quality NSOM Aperture Probes Made More Cheaply
Near-field scanning optical microscopes (NSOM) have not been used widely or routinely because of difficulties producing high-quality probes at a reasonable cost. The technique uses probes with holes so tiny that they produce evanescent waves to...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Improving Solar Efficiency Through Tandem Design
Organic solar cells have several potential benefits. Compared with their nonorganic brethren, they are lightweight, inexpensive and easy to produce. Unfortunately, they remain relatively ineffective, converting much less sunlight into usable...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Ivy’s Secret Is in Its Secretions
As anyone knows who has ever been to Wrigley Field in Chicago, ivy climbs, it covers and it spreads over almost anything in its path. The plant’s famed surface-climbing ability has made it a fixture in country gardens, on urban buildings and in...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Leaves Its Print on Surveillance
For better or worse, security is increasing, and that means new opportunities — and challenges — for machine vision. Cameras and systems developed originally for inspecting widgets now are being pressed into service for surveillance and for...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Near-IR Spectroscopy Gauges Tastiness of Plums
Consumers judge stone fruits such as plums by appearance and texture, seeking sometimes subtle clues about the flavor that awaits beneath the fruit’s flesh. Before you see or feel the fruit at the supermarket, however, growers and shippers must...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Practical Nanotomography
The applications of focused ion beam-based nanotomography already are quite diverse and are expanding quickly. Materials science applications range from analysis of volumetric fractions of composition and porosity to crystallographic texture....
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Putting All of the Sunshine to Work in Solar Cells
Despite extensive research and development, solar cells still fall woefully short of perfection. Commercially available units convert only about 15 percent of the light that falls on them into electricity. Now a team from the University of Notre...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
Scanning Impedance Probe Microscopy
Mapping physical properties of various materials at high resolution has been pursued for decades in the microscopy world, and new challenges are added by the semiconductor and materials industries, which have an increasing need to map physical...
Photonics Spectra, May 2008
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