Photonics/​Optics

Products: Photonics/Optics

Waveguide Optics Design Suite

Optiwave Systems Inc. (Ottawa, ON) introduces the OptiBPM 9.0 waveguide optics design suite with integrated simulator dedicated for the design of electro-optic devices in arbitrary materials. The OptiBPM 9.0...

Who's Who: Photonics/Optics

Edward Austin, SOFIA Science Systems Project Manager

SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) is a joint venture between NASA and the German space agency, DLR, involving the use of a modified Boeing 747SP aircraft as an...

Who's Who: Physical Sciences

Dr. Keith Gendreau, Physicist, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

While working on designing an X-ray navigation system for NASA's next-generation Black Hole Imager, Dr. Keith Gendreau, a physicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center,...

Articles: Photonics/Optics

Fiber Optic Communications Systems

Communications and, more recently telecommunications, are needs deeply engrained in human history. These needs have significantly evolved over time enabling today’s content-rich (text, music, images and...

Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Designing Converged Optical Ethernet Networks

Transport networks have witnessed two significant trends over the past half-decade or so. The first has been an explosion in the bandwidth these networks can support and the distances over which...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Compact Two-Dimensional Spectrometer Optics

The figure is a simplified depiction of a proposed spectrometer optical unit that would be suitable for incorporation into a remote-sensing instrumentation system. Relative to prior spectrometer...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Product of the Month: Biochemical Sensing Unit

Stratophase (Romsey, UK) introduces the Spectrosens sensing unit for biochemial detection of toxins, viruses, and bacteria in real-time. Based on an optical silicon micro-chip with an integral...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Machine Vision Software

EyeSpector Version 1.5 software from Vision Components GmbH (Ettlingen, Germany) is suitable for a variety of gauging, inspection, orientation, color inspection, and recognition tasks. The Eye-Spector works with...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Laser Diode Modules

Photonic Products (Hertfordshire, UK) introduces the PM-NEOLD 635nm photon laser diode modules with an integral “Near End of Life Detection” feature that alerts users when a laser diode approaches the end of its...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Spatial Combining of Laser-Diode Beams for Pumping an NPRO

A free-space optical beam combiner now undergoing development makes it possible to use the outputs of multiple multimode laser diodes to pump a neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Curved Piezoelectric Actuators for Stretching Optical Fibers

Assemblies containing curved piezoceramic fiber composite actuators have been invented as means of stretching optical fibers by amounts that depend on applied drive voltages....

Features: Photonics/Optics

Combining Multimode Emissions from Broad Area Laser Diodes into Single-Mode Spots without Feedback

Broad-area laser diodes are the most efficient coherent light sources and are widely used today. The extraordinary efficiency, modulation...

Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Design of a Field-Mapped Beam Homogenizer

Light beam homogenizer designs used for decades are largely based upon lenticular lens arrays that date back to the 1940s and 1950s. A more recent design is from the late 1980s that comprises a pair...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Tunable Optical Assembly With Vibration Dampening

Since their market introduction in 1995, fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) [wherein “fiber” signifies optical fiber] have emerged as excellent means of measuring such parameters as strain and...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Cylindrical Piezoelectric Fiber Composite Actuators

The use of piezoelectric devices has become widespread since Pierre and Jacques Curie discovered the piezoelectric effect in 1880. Examples of current applications of piezoelectric devices...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Micron-Accurate Laser Fresnel-Diffraction Ranging System

The figure schematically depicts two versions of an opto-electronic system, undergoing development at the time of reporting the information for this article, that is expected to be...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Polarization/Spatial Combining of Laser-Diode Pump Beams

The figure depicts a breadboard version of an optical beam combiner that makes it possible to use the outputs of any or all of four multimode laser diodes to pump a non-planar ring...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Photonics West Exhibitor Preview

View these and other new products on display by exhibitors at Photonics West, January 22-24, in San Jose, CA. Visit Photonics Tech Briefs at Booth 1437.Visit http://spie.org/x2584.xml for more...

Briefs: Imaging

Mosaic-Detector-Based Fluorescence Spectral Imager

A battery-powered, pen-sized, portable instrument for measuring molecular fluorescence spectra of chemical and biological samples in the field has been proposed. Molecular fluorescence...

Briefs: Imaging

Design and Fabrication of High-Efficiency CMOS/CCD Imagers

An architecture for back-illuminated complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) and charge-coupled-device (CCD) ultraviolet/visible/near infrared-light image sensors, and a...

Briefs: Imaging

Improved Underwater Excitation-Emission Matrix Fluorometer

A compact, high-resolution, two-dimensional excitation-emission matrix fluorometer (EEMF) has been designed and built specifically for use in identifying and measuring the...

Briefs: Imaging

Metrology Camera System Using Two-Color Interferometry

A metrology system that contains no moving parts simultaneously measures the bearings and ranges of multiple reflective targets in its vicinity, enabling determination of the...

Articles: Photonics/Optics

Image Sensors Decades Old But Not Yet Mature

There’s no rule that says when a technology becomes mature, but one might think that image sensors would be by now, 40 years after their conception. Nothing could be further from the truth....

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Optoelectronic System Measures Distances to Multiple Targets

An optoelectronic metrology apparatus now at the laboratory-prototype stage of development is intended to repeatedly determine distances of as much as several hundred meters, at...