Articles from Laser Focus World

1. Hybrid photodiodes promise cost-effective short-wave IR imaging

   Explore Article Laser Focus World (Nov 27 2009) Other Business News

   A combination of organic and inorganic nanoscale materials, along with solution processing, enables a tunable imager for short-wave infrared imaging. The growing interest in short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) imagers is related to the increasing number of applications in this particular spectral region. Wavelengths between the silicon bandgap limit of about 1.1 and 2 µm are of commercial interest because of the low water absorption in this spectral region. Photodiodes for the SWIR are usually made (Read Full Article)
   

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2. Holographic live-tissue imaging uses photorefractive polymer

   Explore Article Laser Focus World (Oct 2 2009) Other Non-Medical

   Collection of three-dimensional (3-D) data from confocal scanning microscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT) is lengthy due to the sequential acquisition of image pixels required for these methods; for this reason, researchers at the University of Cologne (Cologne, Germany) and Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) are pursuing a variation of holographic optical coherence imaging (HOCI) as a faster depth-resolved imaging technique.1 Because the whole image is formed in one step, lengthy point scanning is avoided. However, another major obstacle for any tissue-imaging system is light scattering and its impact on image resolution. To combat this concern, the research team implemented ... (Read Full Article)
   

   Comment on Article Mentions:   Purdue University   University of Cologne

3. Molecular imaging gets a new tool

   Explore Article Laser Focus World (Sep 1 2009)

   In September of last year I happened to be in Europe on “beam day”—the day on which the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was turned on for the first time. The LHC is a particle accelerator at CERN, the European high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva in Switzerland. There can be few events—and even fewer scientific ones—that have achieved such universal pan-European media coverage as did this firing up of the LHC. It was, I would guess, front-page news in all of Europe’s leading newspapers. And ev (Read Full Article)
   

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4. OCT aims for industrial application

   Explore Article Laser Focus World (Sep 1 2009) NDE/NDT

   The speed, precision, and cost benefits of optical coherence tomography are beginning to attract the interest of industrial end users. For detailed subsurface imaging of small, semiopaque 2-D surface areas or 3-D structures, OCT is just the thing. When optical coherence tomography (OCT) was introduced in the early 1990s, it was immediately recognized for its ability to produce high-resolution, depth-resolved imagery of biological tissue. Its impact on ophthalmology is evident in a recent article published by Ocular Surgery News. Writes author Richard Lindstrom, “Every day in clinical practice around the world, optical coherence tomography is making a significant contribution to ... (Read Full Article)
   

   Comment on Article Mentions:   Michelson Diagnostics   Thorlabs   Richard L. Lindstrom

5. Munich sends optimistic message

   Explore Article Laser Focus World (Jul 29 2009) Other Business News

   The World of Photonics Congress attracted approximately 3100 delegates and encompassed seven different conferences, of which two covered bio: European Conferences on Biomedical Optics and Medical Laser Applications.... Among the bio conferences, photoacoustics, optical coherence tomography (OCT), and microscopy were key topics. (Read Full Article)
   

   Comment on Article Mentions:   Andor Technology   Ulrich Simon   John R. Ambroseo

6. BaySpec's new lab will support application-specific systems

   Explore Article Laser Focus World (Jul 9 2009)

   BaySpec's new lab will support application-specific systemsLaser Focus World Magazine... and other fiber sensing applications, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) spectral engines for ophthalmology and in-vivo biological imaging. ... (Read Full Article)
   

   Comment on Article Mentions:   BaySpec Inc.   William Yang

7. Full-field OCT approaches clinical application

   Explore Article Laser Focus World (Apr 3 2009) Oncology

   Newly developed Cell OCT, an approach to full-field optical coherence tomography, has enabled researchers to image breast-cancer tissue with histology-like results. Full-field OCT is an en face (transverse), broadband interferometric approach to optical coherence tomography (OCT) that’s been in use for life-science research for more than a decade.1–3 The technique offers many advantages, including fast tissue imaging at the cellular level, which is why at ESPCI (Ecole Superieure Physique Chimie Industrielles; Paris, France) we call it “Cell OCT.” Recently, full-field Cell OCT proved able to virtually slice ablated breast tumors and lymph nodes with 1 µm isotropic resolution, and to ... (Read Full Article)
   

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8. Polarimetry improves spectral measurement of swept-wavelength sources

   Explore Article Laser Focus World (Jan 6 2009)

   Although optical-spectrum analysis and polarization measurement methods are not generally related, a collaborative effort by scientists at Tianjin University (Tianjin, China), General Photonics (Chino, CA), and the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA) has resulted in a polarimeter-based optical-spectrum analyzer (P-OSA) that measures with a speed and resolution that cannot be achieved using traditional grating-based, filter-based, or interferometric methods.1 In fact, the method w (Read Full Article)
   

   Comment on Article Mentions:   General Photonics   Steve Yao

9. Medical imaging company acquires Axsun Technologies for its OCT expertise

   Explore Article Laser Focus World (Dec 30 2008) Cardiology , Acquisition , Tunable Sources

   December 30, 2008--Volcano Corporation (San Diego, CA), developer of products for the diagnosis and treatment of coronary and peripheral artery disease, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Axsun Technologies (Billerica, MA), a privately held company that develops lasers and optical engines used in optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging systems and photonic components and subsystems used in other industrial applications. (Read Full Article)
   

   Comment on Article Mentions:   Axsun Technologies   Dale Flanders   Scott Huennekens

10. Ultra-high-resolution optical coherence tomography gets adaptive-optic ‘glasses’

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Dec 2 2008) Ophthalmology

    Adaptive-optics techniques, which are well known for correcting Earth-based atmospheric effects in astronomical images, are finding new practical application on a smaller scale for retinal imaging. (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory   Duke University   Superlum

11. OCT technique measures bulk refractive index

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Dec 1 2008)

    Although critical-angle refractometry techniques are well-established for measuring the refractive index of homogeneous transparent materials with an uncertainty on the order of 10-6, these techniques only measure the index at a smooth, planar surface of the material–a problem for soft biological materials, considering that any surface treatments can easily modify refractive index. Building on the application of rotationally and angularly resolved low-coherence interferometry (LCI) and standard optical coherence tomography (OCT) techniques for imaging and birefringence measurements, researchers in the Biophotonics Group at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL; Teddington, England) are using Michelson LCI and a commercial OCT system to determine ... (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   Michelson Diagnostics   Pete H. Tomlins   UK National Physical Laboratory

12. Nonclassical OCT images biological sample

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Dec 1 2008)

    Quantum optical coherence tomography (OCT) has, for the first time, been shown to be a viable biological imaging technique, says M. Boshra Nasr, a postdoctoral researcher in the Quantum Imaging Laboratory at Boston University (Boston, MA). Nasr led a project that has produced the first experimental quantum OCT (QOCT) images of a biological sample. Quantum OCT holds strong appeal because, unlike classical OCT, it is inherently immune to group-velocity dispersion (GVD), which degrades axial resolution.1 This immunity is a direct result of the frequency entanglement inherent in the light source used in such a scheme; QOCT is a fourth-order interferometric ... (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   Boston University

13. TUNABLE SOURCES: Telecom laser investments pay off in near-IR instrumentation

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Oct 3 2008) Tunable Sources

    A fortunate ancillary benefit of the massive investment in telecommunications sources has been in other areas requiring tunability at similar wavelengths such as measurement and fiber-optic sensing systems. ... (Read Full Article)
    

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14. Biomedical Imaging: MEMS scanners enable in vivo 3-D OCT

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Aug 1 2008) Gastroenterology , Probes

    While nonoptical medical imaging techniques such as computed tomography, magnetic-resonance imaging, and ultrasound can be very useful in guiding surgical procedures, they lack the spatial resolution required for revealing tissue microarchitecture, which can be important in time-critical applications, such as staging of tumors.1 In contrast, optical imaging modalities such as confocal, two-photon, and fluorescence microscopy, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) provide depth-resolved imaging even in turbid media, with cellular-level detail. In particular, OCT offers imaging depths of several millimeters through human tissue with micrometer resolution in all three dimensions and can extract additional properties of the sample (such as tissue ... (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   University of Texas at Austin   Karthik Kumar   Thomas E. Milner

15. Fiber is superbroadband source

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Jun 27 2008)

    Optical-fiber-based broadband light sources are desirable for applications such as spectroscopy or optical coherence tomography because, being effectively point sources, they have very high beam quality and spatial coherence. Various types of fiber sources exist, including white-light supercontinuum and doped superfluorescent, and bandwidths can reach from less than 100 up to 300 nm or so. But researchers at the University of Bern (Bern, Switzerland) and Silitec Fibers (Boudry, Switzerland) have far surpassed these bawndwidths with their own fiber design, which in one configuration boasts an output spectrum that spans 365 to 2300 nm. Two configurations were tested: one with seven ... (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   University of Bern

16. Photonic Frontiers: Microscopy Techniques - The quest to see inside living cells is driving new optical microscopy

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (May 13 2008) Microscopy

    Microscopes have given scientists vital insight into living things ever since Robert Hooke and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek discovered the microscopic world in the 17th century. Now the quest for better views of living cells is pushing development of new types of optical microscopy that overcome the traditional limitations without sacrificing the advantages of visible light. (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   Duke University   Cornell University   Adam Wax

17. Optoelectronic Applications: Nondestructive Testing - Laser-based instrumentation sheds new light on old art

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (May 13 2008) Art

    Imagine having the opportunity to stand before the Mona Lisa — sans her plexiglass cage, up close and personal, in the basement of the Louvre — and bathe her in coherent blue light, hoping to discover the secrets behind that infamous smile. What minerals and dyes might the pigment contain? What binding agents were used? How much does the final painting differ from the original sketch underneath, and how many layers did it take to create this masterpiece? Did someone — perhaps even Da Vinci himself — at some point alter the original, for reasons we might never know (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   Massachusetts Institute of Technology   Nicolaus Copernicus University   University of Michigan

18. National Physical Laboratory purchases OCT scanner from Michelson Diagnostics

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Apr 30 2008)

    April 30, 2008, Kent, UK--The UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has taken delivery of a state-of-the-art optical coherence tomography (OCT) scanner ... (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   Michelson Diagnostics   UK National Physical Laboratory   Pete H. Tomlins

19. Optoelectronic Applications: In Vivo Imaging: Microendoscopy takes a practical turn

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Jan 29 2008) Gastroenterology , Microscopy , Probes

    Discussions about how to motivate the medical community to embrace new technologies often focus on form and function-user-friendliness, compactness, ergonomics, speed, cost, and so on. For biomedical optics, these discussions further require demonstrating that a laser-based device can do something more-conventional approaches cannot, or at least do it better (such as laser refractive surgery, skin rejuvenation, hair removal, and optical coherence tomography). But with the advent of collaborative (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   Cambridge Technology   OptiScan   Peter Delaney

20. OCT market to top $800 million by 2012

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Jan 29 2008) Funding

    Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is fast becoming the most successful optics technology to date in the field of disease diagnostics. Invented in the early 1990s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) and first commercialized for medical applications by Carl Zeiss in 1996, OCT offers fast, high-resolution diagnostic images for a variety of clinical applications, plus the potential to supplant existing imaging modalities in some medical disciplines. According to Optical Coh (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   LightLab Imaging   Massachusetts Institute of Technology   Scott Huennekens

21. Despite economic uncertainty, LFW Marketplace Seminar predicts steady growth

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Jan 22 2008)

    Greg Smolka described the dynamic optical coherence tomography (OCT) market, with some 19 companies marketing OCT systems since the launch of the first ... (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   Gregory Smolka

22. Innovation opens the door for next wave of success

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Jan 15 2008)

    Last September at the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association’s (OIDA; Washington, D.C.) “Perspectives on the Optoelectronics Industry” forum in San Jose, CA, keynote speaker Henry Kressel of Warburg Pincus (New York, NY) noted that in today’s increasingly competitive global technology marketplace, innovation is critical to sustaining and stimulating growth. “Cross-fertilization in technology is a key driver behind innovation,” Kressel said. “And continuous innovation creates continuous (Read Full Article)
    

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23. Report identifies $200M OCT market

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Jan 15 2008) Funding

    According to “Optical Coherence Tomography - Technology, Markets, and Applications: 2008-2012,” a market-research report from PennWell, publishers of Laser Focus World and BioOptics World, the global market for OCT systems is around $200 million, with an annual growth rate of 25%. This growth is expected to continue at a compound annual rate of 33.5%, topping $800 million by 2012. While ophthalmology is expected to remain the dominant application through 2012, new applications are emerging in ca (Read Full Article)
    

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24. EU-funded Uranus project showcases advances in fiber lasers

    Explore Article Laser Focus World (Dec 27 2007)

    ... even smaller nanotechnology systems and in demonstrating practical new applications such as optical coherence tomography, among many other applications. ... (Read Full Article)
    

    Comment on Article Mentions:   Mircea Guina   Oleg Okhotnikov   Tampere University of Technology

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