Instrumentation for the life sciences is a fast-growing application of optics and photonics. Techniques include DNA sequencing, flow cytometry, and cell imaging and analysis. Often, lasers are used to excite fluorescent tags, while optics and CCD detectors capture and measure the resulting fluorescent signals. Confocal laser scanning microscopy has evolved to become an important tool in screening cells during the drug discovery process. Outside the realm of life science is, for instance, analysis of particle size distribution, perhaps using dynamic light scattering and photon correlation spectroscopy. And various novel spectroscopic techniques are also emerging to boost this market area including, for instance, handheld devices for field monitoring and cavity-ringdown systems for trace-gas detection and analysis.
Topics covered include:
Analytical instrumentation, bioinstrumentation, DNA sequencing, flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, MALDI-TOF, fluorescence microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, materials characterization
From detectors to cameras to sophisticated 3-D vision systems, and from the terahertz to the infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV), this Topic Center covers the components, systems, and applications of detectors and imaging technology. Devices include photomultipliers (PMTs), avalanche photodiodes (APDs), single-photon detectors, and focal-plane arrays, as well as hyperspectral and terahertz imagers, to name a few. And as the latest CMOS devices increasingly compete with CCDs--changing the dynamics of high-end applications like scientific imaging--next-generation digital cameras for high-speed imaging and image processing (long the domain of research and defense applications) are enabling new biomedical, industrial, and environmental applications. Meanwhile novel techniques such as image fusion, image recognition, and extended spectral capabilities, like terahertz, continue to expand the overall capabilities and market opportunities of imaging applications.
Topics covered include:
Single photon, infrared (IR) detectors, photodiodes, CCD detectors & cameras, photomultipliers (PMTs), IR detectors & cameras, CMOS detectors & cameras, semiconductor detectors, high-speed imaging, thermal detectors, image processing & analysis software, other cameras, holography, machine vision, multi- & hyperspectral imaging, terahertz imaging
Optical fiber is probably best-known for communications applications but there are many other types and applications of fiber optics. These include medicine (endoscopy), remote sensing (smart structures), illumination, beam delivery, and fiber lasers. Fiber types include plastic, rare-earth-doped, and microstructured, each offering specific benefits. The success of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) in the 1990s drove development of doped fiber with the result that design and fabrication techniques have advanced rapidly--as has design of related equipment like fusion splicers and OTDRs. Microstructured fibers can be made with otherwise-unobtainable properties--shrinking the core can increase fiber nonlinearity for applications like supercontinuum (white light) generation. Hollow-core fibers can be filled with hydrogen for Raman generation. Other special fibers can be made resistant to radiation or other adverse conditions to enable beam delivery to or remote monitoring of hostile environments.
Topics covered include:
Communication systems, microstructured (photonic crystal) fiber, optical fiber, receivers & transmitters, specialty fibers, test & measurement equipment, fiber amplifiers & repeaters
This Topic Center covers the design and applications of all types of lasers, amplifiers, and other advanced sources like light emitting diodes (LEDs). Lasers are typically classified into three basic types--gas lasers, solid-state lasers, and semiconductor lasers. Within each type there are a variety of different gain media and pumping arrangements. Gas laser types include argon-ion, carbon dioxide (CO2), and excimer. Solid-state systems include fiber lasers, lamp-pumped and diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) devices, and related gain media include Nd:YAG and Nd:YVO4, for instance. Semiconductor (or diode) lasers range from low-power vertical cavity devices (VCSELs) to higher-power optically pumped semiconductor (OPSL) systems and diode arrays as well as emerging designs that include quantum cascade and tunable devices. LEDs and organic LEDs (OLEDs) are semiconductor sources with an increasingly broad range of markets ranging from general lighting to displays and signage.
Topics covered include:
Diode lasers (laser diodes), diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS), lamp-pumped solid-state, fiber lasers, tunable lasers, carbon dioxide (CO2), excimer, other lasers, ultrafast (femtosecond) lasers, supercontinuum lasers, OPOs, amplifiers, LEDs, OLEDs, terahertz sources, quantum-cascade lasers, VCSEL
This Topic Center offers articles and other content that discuss the parts, accessories, and "add-ons" for settingup, running, and maintaining lasers and other photonics systems, be it in a research lab, product development environment, or as an end user. From crystals and Q-switches to safety and diagnostic equipment--like power meters and beam analyzers--there's practical advice ("How to" features), and "state-of-the-art" updates on technologies like scanners and adaptive optics.
Topics covered include:
Beam diagnostics, laser gain media, safety equipment, modulators & Q-switches, power supplies, adaptive optics, scanners
The degree of alignment and stability needed for any optical system depends on its type and use. While simple optics can tolerate misalignments of hundreds of microns, others--such as confocal microscopes or certain interferometers--can require nanometer-level stability. Optical mounting, positioning, and isolation equipment is available for all these needs. Optical elements can be mounted either rigidly, or on mounts that can be moved in translation or angularly (tip-tilt) by means of a micrometer (either manually adjusted or motor-controlled), or with a piezoelectric drive or other actuator. Optical tables, often pneumatically isolated, provide stability even if the floor is vibrating. Enclosures with laminar air flow prevent excessive air turbulence that can ruin the performance of precision systems.
Topics covered include:
Positioning equipment, optical tables & vibration isolation equipment, benches, rails, optical mounts
Most optical components are fabricated from glass, crystals, or metal, while others are made of specialized materials such as plastics or multicrystalline materials. Certain optical materials may have special properties such as birefringence or a nonlinear optical response. Shaping glass to the precision needed is the task of optical-fabrication equipment for lapping, grinding, and polishing, while for metals and some crystals, this is instead the domain of diamond turning. And molding is not just for plastics; aspherical and spherical glass elements can be created this way too. Optical components can be characterized using interferometers or stylus profilers (interferometers measure entire optical systems too), and surface quality (scratch-dig), subsurface imperfections, and scattering are often quantified by eye. Optical thin-film coatings are made of dielectrics and/or metals, and are deposited (sometimes containing more than a hundred layers) with optical coaters, some of which can create high-energy laser coatings.
Topics covered include:
Optical fabrication, optical test & metrology, optical materials, optical coatings
The need for quantitative information is central to all science and engineering, but it is the precision to which this information must be known that makes photonics especially challenging. But, based on both experience and ingenuity, today’s instrumentation rises to the challenge. The wavelength and frequency of light, whether in sharp spectral lines or broadband, whether measured in emission or in absorption, is quantified by spectrometers, spectrophotometers, optical spectrum analyzers, and wavelength meters. Interferometers (for example Fizeau, Twyman-Green, and Michelson) measure distances, as well as optical-system performance in transmission and reflection. Power and energy meters and other types of detectors--semiconductor, IR, visible, UV, photomultiplier tube (PMT), avalanche photodiode (APD)--and their 1-D and 2-D imaging variants provide info on the power, energy, pulse lengths, intensity, brightness, and color characteristics of light. Telescopes and, in particular, microscopes give us views of phenomena at scales far from ordinary perception. Scanning microscopes--confocal, multiphoton, stimulated emission-depletion (STED), and others in development--provide subdiffraction imaging, sometimes to the molecular level. And a new photonic instrument--the frequency comb, produced by ultrafast lasers--promises to quantify frequency (and its optical counterpart, length) to ever-increasing precision.
Topics covered include:
Interferometers, optical spectrum analyzers, power & energy meters, radiometers/photometers, spectrometers, wavelength meters, microscopes
One of the underpinnings of today’s complex photonics systems is software. Lens and optical-system design programs have long been essential for creating optics; thin-film design software has long been essential for developing optical coatings of every sort, including dielectic, metal, and hybrid coatings. As photonics expands its reach, physics modeling and simulation programs have become the tool used to design experiments involving photonic elements ranging from quantum dots to plasmonic structures to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and others. Digital images are sharpened and manipulated to no end using image-processing software. As a result, software control of system elements paradoxically gives the scientist or engineer increased control of the system as a whole.
Topics covered include:
Optical design, thin-film design, modeling & simulation, image processing
This Topic Center includes comprehensive information on the precision parts that are the building blocks of optical systems. At the core of the optics industry are refractive and reflective optical components such as lenses (both spherical and aspherical), prisms, filters (thin-film, bandpass, short-pass, long-pass, and others), mirrors, beamsplitters, and so on. They include infrared (short-wave, mid-IR, and long-wave), ultraviolet, and visible optics. Diffractive optics include gratings, holographic optical elements (HOEs), and diffractive optical elements. But let’s not stop there: leading-edge systems can also contain micro optics and/or planar optics such as waveguides, modulators, and beam couplers. Integrated optics based on silicon and hybrid technologies are finding increased use in sensing, the military, communications, and many other areas.
Topics covered include:
Infrared optics, diffractive optics, gratings, ultraviolet optics, waveguides, optical MEMS, micro optics
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