Photonics/​Optics

Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Optical Gyroscope-on-a-Chip

Gyroscopes are devices that help vehicles, drones, and wearable and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in three-dimensional space. Originally, gyroscopes were sets of nested wheels, each spinning...

Briefs: Imaging

Compound-Lens Camera for Industry and Smartphones

A process has been developed that enables the production of a 2-mm flat camera. The lens is partitioned into 135 tiny facets, similar to the eyes of an insect. The facetVISION camera is...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Blue-Light Imaging Sees Through Fire

A blue-light imaging method was developed that can be used to obtain visual data from large test fires where high temperatures could disable or destroy conventional electrical and mechanical sensors. The...

INSIDER: Photonics/Optics

Enabling “Internet of Photonic Things” with Miniature Sensors

A team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis was the first to successfully record environmental data using a wireless photonic sensor resonator with a...

INSIDER: Medical

Laser-Activated Silk Sealants Outperform Sutures for Tissue Repair

Tissue repair following injury or during surgery is conventionally performed with sutures and staples, which can cause tissue damage and complications, including...

INSIDER: Imaging

Invention Opens Door to Safer, Less Expensive X-Ray Imaging

New lead halide perovskite nanocrystals developed by researchers from NUS Chemistry could soon mean cheaper X-rays and computerized tomography (CT) scans involving lower levels...

INSIDER: Photonics/Optics

Solar Cell Does Double Duty for Renewable Energy

In the quest for abundant, renewable alternatives to fossil fuels, scientists have sought to harvest the sun’s energy through “water splitting,” an artificial photosynthesis...

INSIDER Product: Photonics/Optics

New Products: November 2018 Photonics & Imaging Insider

Telecentric Lenses

Edmund Optics (EO) (Barrington, NJ) has introduced TECHSPEC® MercuryTL™ Liquid Lens Telecentric Lenses. These integrated lenses utilize the unique...

Briefs: Energy

Cell-Sized Robots Sense Their Environment

Colloids — insoluble particles or molecules anywhere from a billionth to a millionth of a meter across — are so small they can stay suspended indefinitely in a liquid or even in air. Robots about...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Retinal Prosthesis Stimulates Nerve Cells

Fabricated using inexpensive and widely available organic pigments used in printing inks and cosmetics, an artificial retina was developed that consists of tiny pixels like a digital camera sensor on...

Briefs: Imaging

Ultra-Thin Camera Creates Images Without Lenses

Traditional cameras — even those on the thinnest cellphones — cannot be truly flat due to their optics. The lenses require a certain shape and size in order to function. A new camera design...

Briefs: Communications

On-Chip Optical Filter Processes Wide Range of Light Wavelengths

MIT researchers have designed an optical filter on a chip that can process optical signals from across an extremely wide spectrum of light at once, something never before...

Articles: Test & Measurement

Simplifying Access to High Energy Sub-5-fs Pulses

In order to make ultrafast pulses accessible to the broadest possible field of applications, Coherent has been implementing a comprehensive program of design methodologies, materials...

Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

New Products: November 2018 Photonics & Imaging Technology

Optical Monitoring System

The SpectraLock Optical Monitoring System from Eddy Company (Apple Valley, CA) provides in-situ monitoring and deposition rate control to produce...

Briefs: Test & Measurement

Next-Generation Photodetector Camera to Deploy During Robotic Servicing Demonstration Mission

An advanced, highly compact thermal camera that traces its heritage to one now flying on NASA's Landsat 8 has been mounted in a corner of NASA's...

Briefs: Materials

Imaging Innovation for Spinal Care

Motion capture (Mocap) is a technique used in the film industry to digitally track a human actor's movements and precisely transfer those motions to an animated figure. But it has other applications as...

Briefs: Communications

Photonic Communication Comes to Computer Chips

With novel optoelectronic chips and a new partnership with a top silicon-chip manufacturer, MIT spinout Ayar Labs aims to increase speed and reduce energy consumption in computing, starting with...

Briefs: Imaging

New Camera Gives Surgeons a Butterfly's-Eye View of Cancer

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Washington University in St. Louis have developed a surgical camera inspired by the eye of the morpho butterfly. The...

Briefs: Data Acquisition

Shrimp-Inspired Camera May Enable Underwater Navigation

The underwater environment may appear to the human eye as a dull-blue, featureless space. However, a vast landscape of polarization patterns appear when viewed through a camera that is...

Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Custom Optomechanics in Industrial UV Lasers

Reliability and longevity directly impact the cost of using Q-switched, diode pumped, solid state, ultraviolet lasers in industrial applications. Damage to the intracavity harmonic crystal is...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Novel Optics for Ultrafast Cameras Create New Possibilities for Imaging

MIT researchers have developed novel photography optics that capture images based on the timing of reflecting light inside the optics instead of the traditional approach...

Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Ray Optics Simulation of Inertial Navigation Systems

Attitude detection is a crucial element in aircraft and spacecraft navigation. The motion of an aircraft consists of a translational component (motion of its center of mass with respect to...

Articles: Materials

2018 Create the Future Design Contest: Grand Prize Winner

INVISIBLE GLASS

Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) has developed a method for creating surface nanotextures that effectively...

Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs

Method Enables Electronic Components to be Printed Like Newspapers

Cellphones, laptops, tablets, and many other electronics rely on their internal metallic circuits to process information at high speed. Current metal fabrication techniques...