Tech Briefs

Photonics & Imaging

Access our comprehensive library of technical briefs on photonics and imaging, from engineering experts at NASA and major government, university, and commercial laboratories.

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Briefs: Transportation
The tiny device accurately measures acceleration in smaller navigation systems and other devices.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A highly efficient and long-lasting solar flow battery generates, stores, and redelivers renewable electricity from the Sun in one device.
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
This set of oculomotor metrics provide valid and reliable measures of dynamic visual performance.
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Briefs: Imaging
Combining high-speed camera and interferometer technology enables the detection of electrical pulses travelling through nerve cells.
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Briefs: Imaging
Researchers at University of Central Florida have developed an artificial intelligence device that mimics the retina of the eye.
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Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
Concept Development for Advanced Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar
Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can globally monitor dynamic processes on the Earth’s Surface. The last SAR to be developed and deployed by NASA was in the year 2000.
Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
Traditional time-of-flight LiDAR has many drawbacks that make it difficult to use in many 3D vision applications.
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Briefs: Imaging
The imaging system tested in NASA wind tunnels can reduce or eliminate shadows that occur when using many existing BOS and photogrammetric measurement systems.
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Briefs: Imaging
The assembly can simply be mounted in front of a camera to enable focusing schlieren imaging capability.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
The new microscope is called a hybrid open-top light-sheet (OTLS) microscope.
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Briefs: Energy
Inducing TR in a battery cell allows engineers to test and improve the safety performance of overheated batteries that can potentially catch fire or explode.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Compact, Temperature-Tuned OFDR Laser
NASA has focused on OFDR, an alternative FBG interrogation technique based on laser interferometry.
Briefs: Design
Using state-of-the-art indium phosphide transistors and a basic computer and mirrors, researchers were able to produce images of concealed bodies.
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Briefs: Imaging
The sensor works by detecting variations in microgravity using the principles of quantum physics, which is based on manipulating nature at the sub-molecular level.
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Briefs: Imaging
The design produces a compact, efficient, long-lifetime laser transmitter as needed for use in space, while also having potential applications as an airborne or ground-based wind measurement tool.
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Briefs: Energy
A group of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory has created a new method for improving the resolution of hard X-ray nanotomography.
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Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
Enter the frequency comb, a Nobel Prize-winning device and the result of decades of research from NIST and others. The comb generates a billion pulses of light per second, which bounce back and forth inside an optical cavity.
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Briefs: Imaging
Ultrathin Holographic Display
An ultrathin display for holographic images consists of a thin film of titanium filled with tiny holes that precisely correspond with each pixel in a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel.
Briefs: Communications
The new NIST instrument captures waves in action by relying on a device known as an optical interferometer.
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Briefs: Medical
Instead of surgically removing a sample of skin, sending it to a lab, and waiting several days for results, your dermatologist takes pictures of a suspicious-looking lesion and quickly produces a detailed, microscopic image of the skin. This could become routine in clinics.
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Briefs: Medical
Cancer immunotherapy, one of the most important and promising therapies for cancer treatments, is being used by oncologists to treat patients suffering from many different cancers including breast, cervical, colon, stomach, and skin.
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Briefs: Imaging
The models allow users to optimize X-ray radiography setups, for the detection of crack and crack-like flaws, to penetrate various materials to show internal structures of parts.
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Briefs: Medical
The team compared its AI approach, known as virtual native enhancement, with contrast-enhanced CMR scans now used to monitor hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the most common genetic heart condition.
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Briefs: Imaging
The quantum gravity gradiometer was used to find a tunnel buried outdoors in real-world conditions one meter below the ground surface.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Inducing TR in a battery cell allows engineers to test and improve the safety performance of overheated batteries that can potentially catch fire or explode.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
MediSCAPE is a highspeed 3D microscope capable of capturing images of tissue structures that could guide surgeons to navigate tumors and their boundaries without needing to remove tissues and wait for pathology results.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Tests showed the metalens they made could focus its 197-nanometer output onto a spot measuring 1.7 microns in diameter, increasing the power density of the light output by 21 times.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Plasmonics is a technology that essentially traps the energy of light in groups of electrons oscillating together on a metal surface.
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Briefs: Connectivity
It achieves 40 channels by combining a frequency comb light source based on a new photonic crystal resonator developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with an optimized mode-division multiplexer.
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