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Articles
The Difference and Distance Between Invention and a Business
This issue begins a series of four articles that will focus on converting your invention into a revenue-generating business, the critical information you need to gather to get started, and how to put together the two initial documents to gather funding to start your business: financial...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A waveguide power-amplifier module capable of operating over the frequency range from 80 to 150 GHz has been constructed. The module comprises a previously reported power amplifier packaged in...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Improved Traps for Removing Gases From Coolant Liquids
Two documents discuss improvements in traps for removing noncondensable gases (e.g., air) from heat-transfer liquids (e.g., water) in spacecraft cooling systems. Noncondensable gases must be removed because they can interfere with operation. A typical trap includes a cylindrical hydrophobic...
Briefs: Medical
Cochlear implants have been used successfully to provide auditory information for bilaterally profoundly deaf patients. This is achieved by electrically...
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Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
Improved low-resistance, semitransparent back contacts, and a method of fabricating them, have been developed for solar photovoltaic cells that are made from thin films of I-III-VI2...
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Briefs: Information Technology
A method of automation, and a system of computer hardware and software to implement the method, have been invented to assist en-route air-traffic controllers in the issuance of...
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Articles: Software
Mechanical CAD (computer-aided design) programs have become very sophisticated during the past few years. Unfortunately, there is still a portion of the engineering spectrum that cannot be...
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Articles: Photonics/Optics
Photonics Tech Briefs (PTB) recently presented the 2005 Readers’ Choice Products of the Year at a special awards dinner held at The Water Club in New York City. The top three products...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Practical space-based coherent laser radar systems envisioned for global winds measurement must be very efficient and must contend with unique problems associated with the large platform...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
An alternative design for dielectric optical microresonators and a relatively simple process to fabricate them have been proposed. The proposed microresonators would exploit the same basic...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
In one of several alternative approaches to the design and fabrication of a "whispering-gallery" optical microresonator of high resonance quality (high Q), the index of refraction...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Graded-Index “Whispering-Gallery” Optical Microresonators
Graded-index-of- refraction dielectric optical microresonators have been proposed as a superior alternative to prior dielectric optical microresonators, which include microspheres (described in several prior NASA Tech Briefs articles) and microtori wherein electromagnetic waves propagate...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
The stimulation of nerve tissue is a technique that is used in both research and clinical applications. Neuroscientists use nerve stimulation to study the fundamental principles of the nervous system...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Nitrogen lasers have been used for more than 15 years in life science and forensic applications and will continue to play a role in many scientific and industrial applications. But...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A method of adaptive signal processing has been proposed as the basis of a new generation of interferometric optical profilometers for measuring surfaces. Many current optical...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Faced with increasing demand, manufacturers of power devices, microdisplays, and high-brightness light-emitting diodes (HB-LEDs) are focusing on tightening manufacturing...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Improved Photon-Emission-Microscope System
An improved photon-emission-microscope (PEM) instrumentation system has been developed for use in diagnosing failure conditions in semiconductor devices, including complex integrated circuits. This system is designed primarily to image areas that emit photons, at wavelengths from 400 to 1,100 nm,...
Products: Photonics/Optics
The MirusTM diode pumped solid-state laser system from Northrop Grumman Space Cutting Edge Optronics (St. Charles, MO) is available with 450 watts of output power. It features an RS...
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Products: Photonics/Optics
Photonic Products (Huntington Beach, CA) has launched 8-mm-diameter laser diode modules for use in prepress plate alignment and laser alignment for label and wrapper cutting machinery, and medical applications such...
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Products: Photonics/Optics
The SAR500x silicon avalanche photodiodes (Si-APD) from Laser Components (Hudson, NH) feature a 500-μm detector chip with a “reach-through” structure. This structure is responsible for sensitivity in the...
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Products: Photonics/Optics
Optical Surfaces Ltd. (Surrey, UK) offers laser beam expanders for high-power laser and Doppler shift LIDAR applications. Manufactured to better than lambda/10 surface accuracy, the off-axis design of the beam expanders...
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Products: Photonics/Optics
Interferogram Analysis Software
IntelliWave 5.0 interferometry analysis software from Engineering Synthesis Design (Tucson, AZ) features a new scientific programming language. The automation/client server architecture allows bidirectional communication and data transfer between other programs for industrial systems automation. Wizards provide...
Products: Photonics/Optics
Coherent (Santa Clara, CA) has introduced the LAMBDA SX 315C excimer laser designed for low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) crystallization used in the manufacture of flat-panel displays (FPD). The laser features pulse energy of up...
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Products: Photonics/Optics
Handheld Photometer
Designed for measuring area illumination, projector output, screen brightness, architecture lighting, room lighting, and color uniformity, Photo Research (Chatsworth, CA) has developed the PR-524 LiteMate illuminance handheld photometer system. The PR-524 features a cosine corrected receptor and measures illuminance. The...
Products: Photonics/Optics
The ESD-380DR high-speed color dome from ELMO USA Corp. (Plainview, NY) provides 360° continuous pan rotation at a travel speed from 5° to 400°/second. It operates from presets with 180° auto turnaround. The ESD-380DR features...
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Products: Photonics/Optics
Lasson Technologies (Culver City, CA) has released the AIR-1550-TWM laser ultrasonic receiver for component inspection and nondestructive evaluation of material properties. Part of the AIR family of receivers, the...
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Products: Photonics/Optics
MetroLaser (Irvine, CA) has announced the VibroMet 500V single-beam laser Doppler vibrometer that features a sensitivity range of 2 microns/sec, and a vibration velocity measurement range of 1 meter/sec. The laser is...
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Products
Watlow, St. Louis, MO, has introduced the EZ-ZONE™ ST integrated control loop that integrates temperature control, power control, safety shutdown, and power disconnect in a single package. The system features a PID temperature...
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Products: Photonics/Optics
Sensors Unlimited, Goodrich Corp. (Princeton, NJ) has announced the SU640SDWH-1.7RT high-frame-rate, high-resolution, shortwave infrared (SWIR) camera. The indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) camera has regions of...
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