Features | Photonics Spectra

Features

The telecommunications industry is in a frenzy to deliver more bandwidth. The (mostly) all-optical network concept, with a modicum of mechanical and electrical switches, is the future. But before that happens, the industry must learn to integrate what it already has: an alphabet soup of hardware and software, electrical and optical switches, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transport solutions, asynchronous transfer mode backbones, SONET rings, and many other devices linking...

Photonics Spectra, May 2000

Photonics in: The Laboratory

We asked laboratory managers what features they look for in photonic equipment and what they expect to buy in the next few years. The laboratory market is fragmented, with scientists in different disciplines demanding different things. Nevertheless,...

Photonics Spectra, May 2000

Plastic Optics Challenge Glass

Injection-molded plastic optics with precision requirements were most likely first produced in high volume by Eastman Kodak Co. during the 1960s. The lenses were spherical and crude by today’s standards. In the late 1960s, Polaroid Corp. and...

Photonics Spectra, May 2000

Quantum Cascade Lasers Make Sense for Sensing

Chemical sensing has enormous potential in environmental monitoring, medical applications and industrial process control. Recent studies have linked airborne heavy carbon isotopes to the early formation of ulcers and some stomach cancers. New...

Photonics Spectra, May 2000

Technology Close-Up:

Determining an application’s parameters and requirements is important when shopping for an image sensor. The goal is to match the capabilities and limitations of the sensor to the application’s price and performance needs. Image sensor...

Photonics Spectra, May 2000

Cathing Polluters (Infra)Red-Handed

Day or night and in all types of weather, airborne imaging systems help save lives, catch criminals and bring breaking news to the world. Handheld industrial thermal imaging cameras enhance safety, speed up processes and save money through...

Photonics Spectra, April 2000

Degrees Dropping in a Hot Job Market

Students preparing for a career in photonics could take a lesson from professional gamblers, who understand that the secret to success is knowing when to quit. Right now, overall unemployment in the US hovers around 4 percent, and in many...

Photonics Spectra, April 2000

Hired Today, Gone Tomorrow?

One out of four readers of Photonics Spectra -- you, your co-worker, your competitor or your boss -- is actively looking for a new job. These job-seekers are already employed but are, in the words of one recruiting firm, frogs in a wheelbarrow: They...

Photonics Spectra, April 2000

Photonics Design & Solutions:

Modern-day military aircraft depend on a diversity of electromagnetic sensors to provide the pilot with unparalleled battle-space awareness and engagement opportunity. Reconnaissance, search and rescue, time vision navigation/evasion, target...

Photonics Spectra, April 2000

Technology Close-Up:

With the availability of war-surplus night-vision viewers and the development of uncooled thermal infrared sensors, infrared imaging has moved to civilian applications. However, few technologists have a feel for its use in the field. The term "night...

Photonics Spectra, April 2000

There’s More than Money in that Pot of Gold

The 2000 Photonics Jobs & Salary Survey found that employees who have 10 to 20 years of experience earned, on average, $72,800. But salaries and stock options aren’t the only draw. Year-end bonuses, education packages for the kids,...

Photonics Spectra, April 2000

News Flash: Rekindled Waco Debate Prompts IR Test

The Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, burned to the ground on April 19, 1993, marking the end of a 51-day standoff between members of the religious group and federal officials. What began as a raid by agents of the US Bureau of Alcohol,...

Photonics Spectra, March 2000

Photonics and Food: From Corn to Cupcakes

Photonics goes to work before the corn even begins to grow. For example, Dicky-john Corp., a farm equipment supplier in Auburn, Ill., makes an LED-based sensor that lets corn farmers know how many seeds they have planted. Dicky-john’s seed...

Photonics Spectra, March 2000

Photonics and Food: The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

With advanced camera technology, faster processors and robust software, machine vision not only helps automate cookie production, but also can help soften the stamp of a factory line to produce a commodity appearing as coarse and genuine as the...

Photonics Spectra, March 2000

Photonics and Food: The Perfect Orange

In the real world, most citrus packers still inspect and grade fruit manually. Economic and technical considerations limit machine vision solutions at the component level. Thus, vision finds application only in large packing operations that are able...

Photonics Spectra, March 2000

Photonics and Food: Vision Shouldn't Blur Your Beer

A couple of bottles of beer between friends may give rise to some colorful reflections on life. Reflection, however, can pose problems for machine vision in beer bottling and other inspection applications. Photonics Spectra outlined a hypothetical...

Photonics Spectra, March 2000

Small Displays Loom Large

A wearable display could replace a laptop computer screen or serve as a mobile Internet browser, offering privacy, portability and hands-free operation. Although these and many other wearable display applications continue to excite the imaginations...

Photonics Spectra, March 2000

Technology Close-Up: Micromirrors Relieve Communications Bottlenecks

Information is the lifeblood of global commerce in the 21st century, and networks are its veins and arteries. But even the highest-capacity optical networks are subject to "thromboses" -- bottlenecks that thwart and complicate delivery of the...

Photonics Spectra, March 2000

Extreme Photonics: Mega Mirrors

When Mary Edwards wanted to look for interior flaws in the glasswork her colleagues were making, she took off her jewelry, removed her shoes and belt buckle, and emptied her pockets of sharp objects. The senior product engineer at Corning Inc. in...

Photonics Spectra, February 2000

Extreme Photonics: Repetition Rates

Ultrashort pulse generation was totally dominated by lasers that only highly skilled researchers could operate in well-equipped laboratories. The equipment was not suitable for industrial applications: Short-lived components such as carcinogenic...

Photonics Spectra, February 2000

Extreme Photonics: Ultrafast Lasers

The 1999 Nobel Prize in chemistry rewarded not only Ahmed Zewail’s pioneering work on ultrafast spectroscopy and femtochemistry, but also the entire field of ultrafast optics and femtosecond laser applications. In the last decade, pulse...

Photonics Spectra, February 2000

Extreme Photonics: Wavelength Measurement

Spectroscopists have long needed to measure and catalog the "exact" absorption wavelengths of atoms and molecules. But accurate wavelength measurement is not just for spectroscopy anymore. Two applications that require precise wavelength...

Photonics Spectra, February 2000

Photonics Design & Solutions: Medical Technology Borrows from Industrial Laser Systems

Just as cutting, welding and drilling are industrial applications, so are they medical applications. Lasers that enable machine tools also enable, in skilled hands, delicate surgical instruments. The laser’s industrial roots took hold long...

Photonics Spectra, February 2000

Technology Close-Up: Fast Cameras Meet the Need for Speed

Every weekend, all over the world, millions of people relax at home by watching televised sporting events. Often, slow-motion instant replay allows viewers to observe an event that was too fast for the eye to see, providing detail that may cause an...

Photonics Spectra, February 2000

Fiber Optics: Fiber Optic Amplifiers

Optical amplifiers will soon become smarter. To meet dense wavelength division multiplexing needs, erbium-doped fiber amplifiers boost optical signals across multiple wavelengths. As communications systems add more wavelengths, however, erbium-doped...

Photonics Spectra, January 2000

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