Editorial
Wilhelm Kaenders (Toptica Photonics)
Interview
Ivan Nikitski (EPIC)
The Swiss developer of high quality, high-speed signal acquisition products, reveals his secrets in a conversation with EPIC’s technology manager for quantum and PICs.
Jérémy Picot-Clémente (EPIC)
The managing director and the technical coordinator of the European pilot-line association Phabulous, which is providing highly advanced and robust manufacturing technology for optical free-form microstructures, talk to EPIC photonics technologies program manager Jérémy Picot-Clémente.
Call for Applications
The presentation of the Quantum Effects Award 2023 will be one of the highlights during Quantum Effects, Trade Fair and Conference for Quantum Technologies, which will be held in Stuttgart on 10 and 11 October 2023. The Award recognizes outstanding innovations that connect the classical and quantum worlds, are used in different industries, enable individual services and open up new perspectives. This also applies to components that significantly advance quantum technologies and solutions.
Interview
Maike Pfalz (Wiley)
The physicist Michael Förtsch founded the high-tech startup Qant out of the Trumpf Group in 2018 to develop novel sensors and photonic computer chips. The company uses light as the fundamental resource to realize the potential of quantum technology. Qant now has almost eighty employees at its Stuttgart location.
Fibers and Fiber Optics
Anja Knigge, Christian Knothe, & Tobias Kroker (all: Schäfter+Kirchhoff)
Technical progress in both industry and science has enabled the preparation, manipulation, and probing of quantum systems with an unprecedented level of control. This provides the basis for a multitude of so-called quantum technologies like quantum cryptography, quantum sensors and quantum computers, which are currently developing from laboratory experiments into commercial applications.
Technology Feature
Stefan Rank & Frank Deppe (both: IQM Quantum Computers)
Quantum computers promise to solve certain advanced computational tasks with higher computational speed, higher accuracy, and less energy consumption. To be useful for real-world applications, traditional quantum algorithms typically require significantly more sophisticated quantum computers than are available today.
Co-designing application-specific quantum integrated circuits (ASICs) is one avenue being explored by quantum computing scientists and engineers to achieve quantum advantage in the near future. Currently, the co-design paradigm is most prominently pursued in the field of superconducting quantum systems, which operate in the microwave regime.
Nevertheless, due to the universality of the underlying light-matter coupling mechanisms, insights taken from the field of photonics could provide valuable contributions to the advancement of co-designed quantum computers.
Product Report
The Quantum 2.0 shift needs excellent industrial laser systems that exceed key benchmarks such as integration, scalability, and ease of use. Toptica has taken bold steps to meet the need by introducing an innovative feature, the ‘quad laser operation’ option. This groundbreaking addition allows users to easily control up to four DFB or DL pros.
Laseroptik uses dedicated equipment to apply dielectric coatings to large optics up to 2 m in length (long axis for rectangular shapes) or 1 m in diameter with a superior spectral uniformity over the complete surface and high LIDT values.
Spectroradiometers are the key component for a wide range of light measurement tasks in many innovative applications. Radiometric, photometric and colorimetric properties are calculated from their spectral data with the aid of extensive software suites, such as SpecWin Pro. Their precision and accuracy are therefore especially important for exact readings.
Optical filters selectively control light of a particular wavelength or polarization and are essential across many industries in applications such as machine vision, microscopy, spectroscopy, or chemical analysis. Because optical filters are available in numerous sizes and specifications, understanding the nomenclature and key terms will help to differentiate between them.
Laser technology is based on the principles of quantum mechanics and works by exciting atoms or molecules to a higher energy level, and then allowing them to release that energy in the form of a highly focused beam of light. This technology has many advantages over traditional technologies, such as greater precision, faster processing speeds, and higher energy efficiency.
Laser Materials Processing
Jim Bovatsek (MKS Spectra-Physics)
Lithium-ion batteries are the energy storage medium of choice for myriad applications. The enormous demand worldwide is reaching new heights, motivating the development of lower cost, faster production methods. With all these efforts to economic efficiency, the quality of the manufactured batteries must remain at the highest level, a goal that can only be achieved if all the individual components meet their respective quality specifications. MKS, with its different brands in the photonics industry, has conducted intensive research to support customers in optimizing their laser-based production processes. The latest research shows the advantages of using picosecond IR lasers with burst mode.
Radiation Safety
Günther Leschhorn (Instrument Systems)
Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are perfectly suited to fulfill the requirements of present and future 3D-sensing applications. However, prior to operating VCSEL-based devices in public, manufacturers must ensure safe operation compliant with the IEC 60825-1 standard or corresponding national equivalents.
Imaging and Sensing
Matthew Everett, Jay Skidmore, and Alex Ju (all: Lumentum)
VCSEL-based lidar solutions can accelerate the adoption of ADAS – and ultimately, fully autonomous vehicles – by providing higher performance, greater efficiency, increased accuracy, and higher reliability at a lower cost, compared to existing systems. The flexibility of VCSEL technology makes these systems suitable for 3D sensing applications throughout the car, including in-cabin sensing, short-range sensing (<1 m), and long-range sensing (>200 m).
Microscopy
Frank van Mourik (Flash Pathology), Marloes Groot (VU Amsterdam), and Oliver Prochnow (Hübner Photonics / Valo Innovations)
The choice of femtosecond lasers for use in multiphoton microscopy is not trivial. It is a fine balance between peak power, pulse energy and laser wavelength. In this white paper we discuss important laser parameters and the impact these have on the quality of the results.
Laser Materials Processing
Jan Wagner & Holger Schlüter (both: Scanlab)
Developing laser processes for industrial applications is a challenging and laborious task. Conventional controllers for laser scan systems lack the ability to predict the actual path of the laser beam on the workpiece, making extensive trial-and-error testing of different parameters and delay settings necessary in order to achieve satisfactory results. Finding a balance between the accuracy achieved and throughput is typically a compromise, and varies from user to user. Thanks to the introduction of SCANmotionControl, a new software solution by Scanlab, the programming of laser processes has been revolutionized.
Laser Sources
Lukas Rimgaila (Ekspla), Tadas Bartulevičius (Ekspla), Deividas Andriukaitis (Ekspla), Valdemar Stankevič (Akoneer), Arnas Vyšniauskas (Akoneer), and Oliver Rohm (Topag Lasertechnik)
The development of ultrafast lasers with higher functionality as a result of recent advances in the study of light-matter interaction has revolutionized the micromachining of materials with greater accuracy and a smaller heat-affected zone. The popularity of femtosecond lasers in industry has furthered enhancements to their flexibility and efficiency, including different methods of operation such as in the FemtoLux 30, enabling new techniques in material processing.
Product Report
Battery boxes in electric vehicles can influence more than just vehicle dynamics. The fire risk posed by batteries makes them crash-relevant components. For this reason, high-strength aluminum alloy structures are used in production, although they are markedly susceptible to hot cracking; the quality of the weld seams is a decisive factor in their strength. Scansonic, one of the world's leading manufacturers of laser machining optics, is presenting its product portfolio at Laser World of Photonics in Munich.
Lenses are widely used as a basic optical element in daily life. They are used in cameras, eyeglasses, microscopes, and many other devices. The lenses are developed based on classical refractive optics, which leads to unavoidable imaging errors such as chromatic as well as spherical aberration and coma. To minimize these, conventional imaging systems usually use multiple lenses of different powers and materials.
PM bv, a manufacturer of precision linear bearings and linear slides in the Netherlands, has the smallest linear precision slide available in the industry, the MSR 3. It is designed for the optical, microelectronics, and laser industry where precise movements are required, often within tight installation spaces. The design offers ultrasmooth motion and high repeatability.
Trends in Manufacturing
Oliver Fähnle, Kerstin Kern, Jan Allaart, Henrik Surberg (all: Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, Jens Bliedtner, Christian Schulze, Sebastian Henkel, Volker Heineck (all: Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences), Jürgen Bode, Michael Wagner (both: Satisloh)
Additive technologies allow the flexible production of gradient index (GRIN) polishing tools with specifically adaptable removal functions. These were successfully developed and investigated for synchrospeed polishing.
Optical Measurement Technology
Faiza Houta, Michael Quinten (Dr Quinten Wissenschaftlich-technische Software)
Optical thickness determination with miniaturized spectrometers is a commonly used technique that works quite well in many applications. For sintered materials however, this technique must be extended by the determination of the optical constants of the sintered material. This can be done using a combination of scanning electron microscopy and effective medium approaches. In this article, we demonstrate this for the optical thickness determination of sintered Al2O3 layers in quartz tubes.
Previews
Index & Masthead
