MICHAEL D. WHEELER, MANAGING EDITOR, [email protected] The freeform optic. It has captured the imagination of optical designers, given its excellent performance and the ease with which it can be integrated into today’s optical systems. But manufacturing freeform optics is a tricky proposition and has required innovations in design, measurement, and characterization. “Like the introduction of aspheres and the various techniques needed for producing them decades before, the cart arrived somewhat before the horse,” said QED Optics’ Mike DeMarco, one of several optics experts interviewed for this month’s...Read full articleRelated content from Photonics MediaARTICLESDream in a bottle10th February 1989 Dear Amy, I must write a special letter and thank you for the dream in a bottle. You are the first person in the world who has sent me one of these and it intrigued me very...Photonics Spectra November 2019 IssueOmissions, errata, abridgmentsThe blog Time’s Flow Stemmed includes an anonymous entry called “Nothing Compared to the Stars,” which quotes a letter written by Caroline Herschel. Herschel (1750-1848) was the...Photonics Spectra March 2020 IssueWhere AI meets the real worldInventor and technologist Haresh Sippy urged those seeking to solve thorny problems to “tackle the root cause, not the effect.” That thinking is at the heart of several of our features...Vision Spectra Autumn 2019 IssueWhen only 3D vision will doFor barcode reading, label verification, and presence detection, traditional 2D machine vision fits the bill. But for increasingly complex imaging applications — especially where greater...Vision Spectra Summer 2019 IssueWEBINARSNovel SWIR Detectors and Imagers Approaching the Thermodynamic Detection LimitPhoton detectors are now at the heart of many modern scientific, medical, industrial and security systems. These detectors, whether single-element or imaging arrays, are often the performance...Photonics.com 4/9/2015The Past, Present and Future of Freeform OpticsFree Webinar Post Webinar Notes We will be posting additional questions and answers from the webinar soon. The presentation slides will not be available for download but we will have a list...Photonics.com 11/13/2013Photobiomodulation: Laser Therapy for the Nervous SystemThe use of “low level” light applications, termed photobiomodulation (PBM), as a noninvasive, neuro-restorative therapy has potential to revolutionize repair of the injured nervous...Photonics.com 2/19/2015Laser Illuminated Maskless h-line LithographyPower Technology will present new options for h-line lithography. Laser light sources have become a viable alternative to LED illuminated maskless lithography systems. Laser technology has several...Photonics.com 7/8/2015