Photonics/​Optics

Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics

FPGAs Yield Virtual Laser Valves for Microfluidics

In today’s “micro world,” complex electrical systems, including analog and digital components, can fit on integrated circuits smaller than a fingernail. Microfluidics, a subset of...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Photonics Tech Briefs Announces 2006 Products of the Year

The votes are in and the winners of the 2006 Photonics Tech Briefs Readers’ Choice Product of the Year Awards have been selected. The three PTB Products of the Year were presented...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Compact Packaging of Photonic Millimeter-Wave Receiver

A carrier structure made from a single silicon substrate is the basis of a compact, lightweight, relatively inexpensive package that holds the main optical/electronic coupling components...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Fabrication of Submillimeter Axisymmetric Optical Components

It is now possible to fashion transparent crystalline materials into axisymmetric optical components having diameters ranging from hundreds down to tens of micrometers, whereas...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Wide-Band, High-Quantum-Efficiency Photodetector

A design has been proposed for a photodetector that would exhibit a high quantum efficiency (as much as 90 percent) over a wide wavelength band, which would typically be centered at a...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Diffractive Combiner of Single-Mode Pump Laser-Diode Beams

An optical beam combiner now under development would make it possible to use the outputs of multiple single-mode laser diodes to pump a neodymium: yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG)...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Narrow-Band WGM Optical Filters With Tunable FSRs

Optical resonators of the whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) type featuring DC-tunable free spectral ranges (FSRs) have been demonstrated. Previously, the FSRs of WGM optical resonators were...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Product of the Month: Spectrograph Software

HORIBA Jobin Yvon (Edison, NJ) released the LS5 software, designed with a kernel-based modular structure. It operates all Raman products including the automated LabRAM ARAMIS, high-resolution...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Photoelectric Sensor

The Optoprox^TM from Balluff, Inc. (Florence, KY) is a photoelectric sensor that offers the mounting, aligning, and handling of an inductive proximity sensor without the range limitations of a prox. The device...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Photodetector Amplifier

Opto Diode Corp. (Newbury Park, CA) offers the ODA-5W-100M Photodetector Amplifier Combination with 100 Mohm gain. The visible wavelength responsivity at 660 nm is 40 V/μW, and the combination detector-preamps...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Scanner Platform

The Lightning^TM Digital Scanner Platform Technology from General Scanning (Billerica, MA) consists of three elements: MPower motors, a Lightning digital servo driver, and the TuneMasterTM software toolset. The...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy

Ocean Optics (Dunedin, FL) introduced the portable LIBS2500 laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy system featuring a sensitivity of 10-50 ppm; a series of 2,048-element, linear CCD detectors; and a...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Halogen Lamp Microscope

Rolyn Optics (Covina, CA) introduced the VMM 200 high-precision measuring microscope with XY measuring ranges of 150 × 100 or 250 × 150, a Z of 150 mm, and resolution to 0.0001 mm. Magnifications range from 25× to...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Lens Design Software

Lambda Research Corp. (Littleton, MA) offers the 6.4.3 release of their OSLO lens design software featuring 18 additions augmenting the flexibility and open architecture of the program, allowing the user to modify,...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Imaging Lens

The Harsh Environment Optics (HEO^TM) micro video-imaging lenses from Edmund Optics, Inc. (Barrington, NJ) incorporate optical components inside a sealed, water-resistant optical assembly. Intended for automotive and...

Products: Photonics/Optics

System Control Software

J P Sercel Associates (JPSA, Manchester, NH) released the JSPAControls32 System Control Software, a Windows-based, engineer-level user interface providing control of system devices and software components for system...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Diode Laser Modules

DILAS Diode Laser Inc. (Tucson, AZ) introduced a line of fiber-coupled diode-laser modules delivering up to 40 W continuous-wave output power at wavelengths of 808nm, 915nm, 940nm,and 980nm via a 400μm-diameter,...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Semiconductor Laser Modules

QPC Lasers, Inc. (Sylmar, CA) offers fiber-coupled semiconductor laser modules for fiber-laser pumping and spectroscopy applications.

Products: Photonics/Optics

Optical Fiber Backlighting

Lumitex, Inc. (Strongsville, OH) released a family of products — BendiGlo^TM, HoloGlo^TM, CircleGlo^TM, and Selective Lighting^TM — based on their existing...

Products: Photonics/Optics

LED Drivers

Endicott Research Group (Endicott, NY) released the Smart Force^TM family of LED driver solutions for high-bright LEDs (HBLEDs) used in LCD backlighting applications. Available as a LED driver board or a complete kit...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Michelson Interferometer

The portable FiBO^TM 300 true phase shifting Michelson interferometers from PROMET International, Inc. (Shoreview, MN) are designed for 3D surface mapping and visual defect evaluation capability. Features...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Fiber Laser

Orbits Lightwave, Inc. (Pasadena, CA) has added up to a 20 GHz mode hop free fast tuning option to its line of Ethernal^TM fiber lasers.

Products: Photonics/Optics

Test Module

EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. (Quebec City, Canada) introduced the FTB-8105 T-Carrier/PDH Transport Blazer test module as part of the Transport Blazer line. The unit tests digital-signal levels and plesio-synchronous...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Detector Array

The Andor iDus InGaAs detector array system from Andor Technology (Belfast, N. Ireland) is a spectroscopic detector with 512 or 1,024 element linear photodiode arrays for near-infrared spectroscopy. The resolution covers...

Articles: Photonics/Optics

Thermographic Improvements Benefit Automotive Industry

Like most mature industries, the automotive industry is highly competitive. Customers demand quality, security, and economy. Competition requires increasingly fast times to market for...

Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) Imaging Aids Laser Tracking, Detection

As warfare becomes more asymmetric, civilians and other non-combatants become a larger percentage of the casualties, along with unintended property damage. The military, of...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Dual-Beam Atom Laser Driven by Spinor Dynamics

An atom laser now undergoing development simultaneously generates two pulsed beams of correlated ⁸⁷Rb atoms. (An atom laser is a source of atoms in beams characterized by coherent...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Rugged, Tunable Extended-Cavity Diode Laser

A rugged, tunable extended-cavity diode laser (ECDL) has been developed to satisfy stringent requirements for frequency stability, notably including low sensitivity to vibration. This laser is...