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NEWSLETTER
Work Group 5 - Security, Metrology and Sensors
Biomedical environment and chemistry
The global pharmaceutical industry is one of the most important and fastest growing sectors of the worldwide economy. Photonics is a key enabling technology for this bioinstrumentation market, providing high-sensitivity detection techniques for drug testing and development, biomedical diagnosis and therapy, food screening, environmental testing, emergency services and homeland security.The reason for the key role played by photonics in most of the biochemical and environmental sensing domains is rooted in the many diverse ways in which light can interact with chemical compounds: Molecules can be recognized by their spectral signature (“colour”) using appropriate optical spectroscopic equipment. Fluorescent microscopy, confocal methods, light scattering and imaging spectroscopy techniques have become cornerstone tools of biomedical analysis because of their very high sensitivity, the high specificity attainable with custom fluorophores, the possibility to mark different sites on a macromolecule, the ease of use and the affordable price.
Process and Quality control
Flexible production needed in the manufacturing industry requires a continuous information feedback from the process in order to guarantee high production quality, process stability and cost optimization. Sensors are required to gather information both from processes and products, enabling a continuous management and the guiding of the processes as well as a quick reconfiguration of the tools and methods.
Optical sensor technology is the fastest growing technology for industrial manufacturing, as a result of its flexibility, ease of use, high speed, accuracy, feasibility and capability for integration in high performance automated inspection systems. The current progress in semi-conductor optoelectronics, laser diodes, fast photo detectors, optical modulators, MEMS and MOEMS technology, micro-electronics development and optical manufacturing technology opens new and improved perspectives for optical sensors and measuring systems, which integrate several components in order to achieve new functionalities.
Optical sensors will open a new era for online inspection of production processes giving access to high potentials for an increase in productivity and quality.
Optical sensor technology is the fastest growing technology for industrial manufacturing, as a result of its flexibility, ease of use, high speed, accuracy, feasibility and capability for integration in high performance automated inspection systems. The current progress in semi-conductor optoelectronics, laser diodes, fast photo detectors, optical modulators, MEMS and MOEMS technology, micro-electronics development and optical manufacturing technology opens new and improved perspectives for optical sensors and measuring systems, which integrate several components in order to achieve new functionalities.
Optical sensors will open a new era for online inspection of production processes giving access to high potentials for an increase in productivity and quality.
Security and Safety
Typical examples of photonics applications related to safety are in transport, for example, continuous monitoring in cars, independent of the weather conditions in order to reduce the risk of accidents and to enable safer driving after dark.
Applications are also envisioned in the field of security: light, compact and highly performing detectors will enable an efficient monitoring of environmental risks and a surveillance of borders as well as weather conditions and the amount of traffic. The emerging laser technology is already enabling the improvement of passenger security, for example via real-time measurement of road friction and other parameters affecting the driver’s security.
This is also increasingly important to perform the monitoring of public spaces, such as railway stations and airports. In these areas, optical measuring methods and photo-detectors will be embedded into complex systems for image recognition, crowd control, motion detection, gesture analysis and the detection of energetic or hazardous materials. Intelligent access control will be guaranteed by a redundant combination of biometric sensors and video systems.
Transport, space and aeronautics
The increasing availability of electronics and informatics on cars, aircrafts, ships, etc. bodes well a further usage of sensors in order to have a complete control of transport media. Almost everything can be sensed, and optical sensors can be the only viable solution in those cases in which there are problems of electromagnetic compatibility, fire or explosion hazard or where low invasiveness is required. It should be also recognized that optics is not the best solution for everything and sometimes it is not cost-effective. In this case, integration of non-optics techniques, thereby the creation of a complete integrated and broad-spectrum sensing system should be envisaged. Moreover, data processing of the obtained data is a fundamental part in developing sensor systems. The key elements that have confronted the discussion of sensors are applications, technologies and data processing. The use of sensors should not be limited to the detection of events, but it should also include diagnosis and prognosis, so that mathematical processes need to be developed alongside the sensors. The prognosis to foresee changes of important parts of particularly critical mission in order to prevent accidents could be of particular interest in space and aviation.Multimedia
Photo-detection is exploited for general public applications in almost all areas of modern society (e.g. digital cameras, scanner, …). Today, imaging systems are part of our everyday life. Therefore, photo-detection has become a key market and a key application sector of photonics, where significant performance improvement still can be achieved in terms of noise detection.
Indeed, up to now the competition has been about more and more pixels. It was a first market response for an ever improving image quality demand. But high pixel numbers alone do not implicate good image quality as sensors have reached 5 or 6 mega-pixel. The next generation camera should improve this situation and bring new features at the same time. By reducing the noise, sensors which work under low light level conditions could be feasible without the need of a flash.
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