A Little off the Top

Millions of people worldwide die from infectious diseases each year, and the spread of these diseases poses a real threat to the survival of public health systems. How quickly health care...

Hyperspectral imagers provide an image that produces a detailed spectrum for every pixel, capturing very minute details in a sample. Typically, this technology has been used to measure the spectral...

The biomedical community recognized the advantages of optical fibers long ago, accepting them even before their adoption for long-haul telecommunications1. Early research on the light-guiding...

In many academic research and medical settings, microscopy and imaging have transitioned from using traditional lamp illumination, such as mercury and Xenon lamphouses, to solid-state LED...

An optical time-domain reflectometer sends short pulses of light into a fiber and measures its reflections as a function of time. The delay of these reflections to the detector as well as their...

Many common spectroscopic measurements require the coordinated operation of a detection instrument and light source, as well as data acquisition and processing. Integration of individual components...

Laser diodes vary widely in their wavelengths, powers, spectra and beam quality. Yet they share two fundamental components with all other lasers: an optical amplifier and a resonator that confines...

Developed in the early 1990s, the silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) is a solid-state photodetector whose sensitivity to light rivals that of a photomultiplier tube (PMT) in a regime where a few hundred...

A wide range of diffraction gratings are available on the market today. Although the basic function of all diffraction gratings is the same, the construction details can differ, and the terminology...

Surgery is a common cancer treatment performed in dogs and cats. Complete tumor removal results in lower recurrence rates and increased survival. The tumor is assessed after surgery using...

Engineers face many unique challenges when creating polymerase chain reaction (PCR) instrumentation. These challenges are seen in both the qualitative detection of nucleic acid sequences, using...

The adoption of freeform optics by designers and manufacturers has increased in recent years. With the increase in flexibility, a freeform surface can incorporate a system and bring more...

A digital camera is a device that captures and records still images or video in digital format. Unlike traditional film cameras, which use photographic film to capture and store images, digital...

A lateral shearing interferometer is an optical device used in interferometry to measure phase differences between two beams of light. Interferometry is a technique that combines and analyzes...

Laser texturing is a manufacturing process that involves using a laser beam to selectively modify the surface of a material, creating textures, patterns, or microstructures. This technique is...

Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) is a non-invasive imaging technique that allows for high-resolution, in vivo imaging of biological tissues at the cellular level. It is particularly useful in...

The new VirtualLab Fusion 2023 thrills with a firework of new features. In this webinar we give an overview of the new features and put them into context with the development strategy and technical...