Photonics Handbook

Photonics is the study of light and other types of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The impact of photonics on research, technology, navigation, culture, astronomy, forensics, and...

By its original definition, a nanopositioning device is a mechanism capable of repeatedly delivering motion in increments as small as one nanometer. Lately demands from industry and research have...

When purchasing an industrial laser system, the astute buyer will look for a Class 1 laser product — a system where the laser beam hazard is completely enclosed and there is no potential laser...

Any number of medical, industrial, and analytical applications requires the detection of light. Chemiluminescence, bioluminescence, fluorescence, and atomic absorption are just a few, and all require...

The use of precision polymer optics is becoming an increasing necessity today as products demand sophisticated light handling components to achieve desired results. Polymer optics can be thought of...

Over 60 years have passed since the first demonstration of a laser in 1960. After the initial spark of interest, lasers were for a while categorized as “a solution waiting for a problem,”...

Abbe Error — Linear off-axis errors introduced by angular deviations coupled to a moment arm at the point of interest on stage mounted devices (θ in Figure 1). The effect of Abbe error...

Excimers are pulsed gas lasers that deliver high output power and pulse energies in the ultraviolet and deep-ultraviolet wavelengths. This enables them to power applications that cannot be supported...

Since their invention in the late 1960s, charge-coupled devices, also called CCDs, have found widespread use in imaging applications. Electronic cameras based on CCD technology are used in...

Infrared system design is not, like some circuit design, a synthetic process. One cannot start by stating the problem and proceeding in an orderly fashion to a final solution. Rather, we guess a...

Camera resolution depends upon the optical blur diameter and the detector size. Schade combined these to create an equivalent resolution that is a function of Fλ/d where F is the focal ratio,...

The digital camera represents an integration of optics, mechanics and electronics consisting of three layers (Figures 1a, b and c). The top and the middle layers are printed circuit boards (PCBs),...

If we were to estimate the output of a CCD or thermal camera, we would typically draw an image over the detectors, aligning the image with the detector axes. We show it this way because it’s...

Reading and writing systems for polygonal scanners differ in the use of the scanner. However, many performance characteristics are similar for both. In writing applications, a light source, usually a...

The scope of optical spectroscopic instrumentation is indeed very broad. Many analytical methods rely on the interaction of radiation with matter and are often described in the context of quantum and...