NASA Tech Briefs Insider Blog

The LS5 software from HORIBA Jobin Yvon (Edison, NJ) has been named Photonics Tech Briefs’ (PTB) Product of the Month for May. Designed with a kernel-based modular structure, it operates all Raman products including the automated LabRAM ARAMIS, high-resolution LabRAM HR, and T64000 triple spectrograph. The software records Raman images in any shape or format. The software incorporates custom accessories such as FT-IR, temperature-controlled stages, and additional detectors.

For more information, see page 20a of the May issue of PTB or
click here.

As noted in the article “Mini CW Lasers Enable Next-Generation Bioinstrumentation” in May’s edition of Photonics Tech Briefs (PTB), continuous-wave (CW) lasers have helped advance research in fields such as cell sorting and DNA sequencing. Written by Jurgen Niederhofer, product manager of Newport’s Spectra-Physics Lasers Division (Stahnsdorf, Germany), the article highlights low-cost, small-form-factor diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) and direct-diode (DD) lasers that answer many of the most common bioinstrumentation applications.

Laser providers are already focused on expanding wavelength offerings, turnkey fiber- coupled solutions, and footprint size. Advances in DPSS and DD will support research in hematology and flow cytometry, among other fields.

See page IIa of the May issue of PTB for the full article. Visit
Newport’s Spectra-Physics Lasers Division here.

The ScanWorks(R) hand-held 3D laser scanner from Perceptron (Plymouth, MI) was named Photonics Tech Briefs Product of the Month for April. The instrument features a scanning rate of up to 458,000 points per second and can maintain a dense point resolution of approximately 14 microns. The device projects the sensor’s field of view onto the target scanning area to visualize the best scanning strategy, and may be used on dark or highly reflective surfaces. The scanning software includes a MS Windows XP-style interface, intelligent sensor calibration, real-time point shading, and automatic exposure control.

For more information, see page 12a of the April issue of PTB or click here.

Each month, the editors of Photonics Tech Briefs (PTB) select a Product of the Month. At the end of the year, we ask our readers to choose the Product of the Year — the one product from those eight nominees that they feel was the most significant new product introduced to the photonics engineering community in 2006.

The readers of PTB have selected the Product of the Year for 2006. The top three products will be recognized at a special awards dinner to be held in New York City and hosted by the editors of NASA Tech Briefs and Photonics Tech Briefs.

The top three winners chosen by PTB readers are:

1. Toshiba Imaging Systems, Irvine, CA, for the IK-TF9C Three-Chip Color CCD Camera
2. Lambda Solutions, Waltham, MA, for the Dimension-P Series Raman Spectrometer
3. Newport Corp., Irvine, CA, for the Helios Transient Absorption Spectroscopy System

For more information about PTB and to subscribe to the magazine, click here.