Polygonal laser scanning is the technology of choice in a variety of applications. It can be used to write information as in laser marking and printing, direct-to-plate imaging, film recording and laser projection; or as a reader for bar code scanning, densitometry, web inspection and agricultural inspection. Reading and writing systems for polygonal scanners differ in the use of the scanner. However, many performance characteristics are similar for both. In writing applications, a light

With the large variety of beamsplitters available, the designer needs to take many factors into consideration. This article and its illustrations will go a long way toward making the correct choice less of a risk. All curves show typical...

Optical Research Associates’ Global Synthesis (GS) algorithm has been in use for more than ten years. During that time, the algorithm has been applied to numerous types of problems, and has proved remarkably successful with an approach that is...

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 aperture of the lens and the aberrations and their effects....

Optical components fall into two basic groups: transmissives and reflectives. Transmissives include lenses, filters, windows, optical flats, prisms, polarizers, beamsplitters, wave plates, and fiber optics; reflectives include mirrors and...

Whether the application is scientific, commercial, industrial or medical, beam diagnostics has become an integral tool for users and manufacturers of lasers and laser-based systems. There is an increasing need to achieve, monitor and maintain higher...

Four decades ago, the first industrial use of lasers was for drilling through diamonds or wire draw dies. From that beginning the laser has become an integral part of the conventional technology in many production plants. In the forefront of that...

Laser scanning technology is employed in a variety of applications, each of which has specific requirements for speed, accuracy, cost and reliability. To obtain optimal performance from a laser scanning system, the system integrator must carefully...

Optimizing the power and repetition rate of pulsed solid-state lasers allows materials processing at high resolution and high speed, a condition made possible by advances in intracavity harmonic generation. Many linear materials proceseqsing...

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 view, the image of a distant object formed by a...

The basic fiber-based communications system consists of a laser transmitter which converts electrical data to intensity-modulated light, a fiber optic cable as short as a few meters or as long as 100-plus kilometers, and a photodetector that...

Colorimetry, the science of color measurement, is widely employed in commerce, industry, and the laboratory to express color in numerical terms and to measure color differences between specimens. Applications include paints, inks, plastics, textiles...

Reducing pixel size can increase a digital camera's performance. However, there are tradeoffs that need to be considered when going that route. In the search for ever-higher pixel counts for the digital still camera, it is clear that, if chip size...

Lighting, sometimes a step-child in machine vision considerations, has become a first-order consideration in automated applications. In the beginning, automated inspection focused on the camera and optics, the algorithms, the interface hardware and...

Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) is an optical microscopy technique capable of imaging objects with a resolution below the diffraction limit of conventional (far-field) microscopy; i.e., below approximately half the wavelength of the...

New tools and techniques such as single-oscillator, double-pulsed lasers expand the applications for particle image velocimetry, particularly in aircraft design. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is an experimental tool in fluid mechanics and...

Rapid detection of light calls for a sensitive detector and electronics that do not introduce additional signal noise. In fact, for very rapid detection, detector shot noise does not determine the signal-to-noise ratio. Instead, the amplifier has...

To appease the demand for bandwidth, telecommunication operators are pushed to increase the per-channel data rate of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems. As bit rates increase to meet expanding demand, systems have become increasingly...

The performance of high-speed, digital fiber optic communications systems depends upon how reliably the receiver is able to distinguish closely spaced bits of information. Dispersive effects — physical mechanisms that broaden transmitted...

Within only a few decades, the semiconductor laser diode has evolved into a family of robust, reliable devices, with individual conversion efficiencies of better than 60 percent, continuous output powers of several kilowatts, modulation rates of...

Spectrochemical analysis employing optical spectroscopic methods is used to monitor the water we drink, the food we eat, the status of human health, and the quality of the environment. Such methods are also crucial to the development of safe and...

The demand for bandwidth drives a growing need for a new breed of test and measurement instruments. As system and cable installers try to optimize their links, the preferred method has become high-speed DWDM.

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 vivid and measurable contrast of the monitored...

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) differ from edge-emitting lasers in that their output beam is perpendicular to the top surface of the device instead of parallel to it.