teamOptic Blog

Projet ARGUS- IS: le revoila!!! ObjectVideo wins DARPA contract to support next-gen surveillance system

2008-01-30T11:31:00.000-05:00

Source: Military and Aerospace newsletter

Je ne suis pas etonnee que ObjectVideo soit interesse par Vigiscan....

ObjectVideo Inc. has received a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to provide the ground station component for a new class of aircraft-based surveillance systems being developed under DARPA's Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System (ARGUS-IS) program. The ARGUS-IS program's goal is to develop a compact system combining a multi-gigapixel, high-resolution sensor; wide-field optics; an ultra-high-bandwidth, real-time airborne processing system; and a ground station for interactive multitarget designation, tracking, and exploitation.

The airborne processing system can simultaneously and continuously detect and track the presence and motion of thousands of small or large targets over an area covering tens of square miles. ObjectVideo will provide the system's ground station capabilities that will display, analyze, manipulate, and archive the data gathered from the airborne surveillance components. ObjectVideo's intelligent video software suite will be used to boost the productivity of ARGUS-IS in several important ways, including automated alerting, intelligent data reduction and video forensics.

"The ability to perform persistent surveillance over large areas is vital to the continued success of U.S. Forces and ObjectVideo is proud to be a part of the program that will exponentially enhance the capabilities of existing systems," says Paul Brewer, ObjectVideo co-founder and vice president of new technology. "ARGUS will produce an enormous amount of data to be processed and leveraged by the ground station, creating a pressing need for automation and data reduction based on intelligent video analysis. Effective ground-based processing of video data will be a key part of the overall system success."

The objective of the ARGUS-IS program is to develop a high-resolution, wide-area video persistent surveillance capability that will provide joint forces with real-time situational awareness and a means to keep critical areas of interest under constant surveillance with a high degree of target location accuracy.

Article de Peter So sur le Brillouin bioimaging!

2008-01-30T10:18:00.000-05:00

Source: Nature Photonics

Une nouvelle technique de microscopie permet de voir les proprietes mecaniques des tissus vivants.

L'article, p.13 a 14, explique la technique. Je peux vous le scanner si vous le souhaitez.
p.39 et suivantes, on notera un second article sur la question par Giuliano Scarcelli et Seok Hyun Yun intitule: Confocal Bbrillouin microscopy for 3 dimensional mechanical image. L'article est beaucoup plus detaille.

On remarque une pub d'une page entiere de OKO.

Nouvelle publication: BioOptics World

2008-01-30T10:10:00.000-05:00

Source: BioOptics World

Dans cette nouvelle publication inauguree durant Photonic West, on trouvera des articles interessants sur:
Biomedical optics projects find federal champions, p.18
James Fujimoto (on ne desespere pas de decrocher un RDV avec le demi-dieu), p.20-21. J'apprends qu'il etait etudiant de Erich Ippen, et vous savez quoi? Erich Ippen est open pour une recontre avec Amplitude. Eric Ippen est LE dieu du femtoseconde dans le coin.
OCT Imaging leaps to the next generation, article de Wolgang Drexler

Ultrafast lasers: it's just the beginning

2008-01-30T10:08:00.000-05:00

On aime bien les titres comme ca....

Source: optics.org

"Ultrafast lasers will become an industry worth $100 billion by 2015." That bold assertion was made by Scott Davison, president of ultrafast start-up Raydiance, speaking at today's Lasers and Photonics Marketplace Seminar.

Davison believes that ultrafast lasers have reached what he calls the "silicon moment" - the tipping point where miniaturization and automation enables the technology to be adopted in mainstream applications. This is the time, he says, when investment dollars transforms what starts off as a geeky enthusiasm into a relevant technology.

To hit the $100 billion mark, though, Davison advocates a radically different business model. Instead of laser firms recording one-off income from hardware sales, he says that ongoing revenues could be achieved by charging some sort of "royalty" every time the laser is used. I'm not convinced that it'll catch on.

Back in the real world, Andreas Tünnermann of the Fraunhofer Institute of Applied Physics in Germany showed just how far ultrafast lasers have come in the past few years. While ultrafast lasers have long shown huge potential for micromachining applications, early versions suffered from low repetition rates and low average power - which meant that it could take several minutes to drill a single hole.

Now, however, the introduction of ultrafast fiber lasers has increased the average power to tens and even hundreds of watts, while repetition rates have risen to hundreds of kilohertz. As a result, a hole in a 0.5 mm thick piece of stainless steel can be drilled in just 800 ms.

Dennis Matthews of the Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis, then spoke about the opportunities for ultrafast lasers in bioscience and medicine. Matthews pointed out that sub-picosecond lasers have already become ubiquitous for bioimaging applications such as multiphoton fluorescence microscopy, and at the same time are increasingly being used to generate other forms of radiation, including X-rays, terahertz radiation, and even protons for radiotherapy treatment.

Matthews says that ultrafast lasers could also play an important role in laser therapy, particularly as more compact turnkey solutions become available. Cost issues remain, though: he reckons that the price tag for an ultrafast laser system will need to fall to $30-50k for dentistry applications and $70-100k for surgical use.

MULTIPHOTON AND CARS: Ultrafast lasers enhance biological microscopy

2008-01-29T17:13:00.000-05:00

Source: Biooptics world

Recent advances in "one-box" ultrafast laser technology has resulted in models that offer longer wavelength tuning than ever before as well as lasers delivering ultrashort pulses with spectral bandwidth greater than 120 nm.

Biophotonics Shines at PWest

2008-01-29T16:32:00.000-05:00

Source: biophotonics.com

While the biophotonics community had the stage to itself during the BIOS portion of Photonics West, the technology was well represented at the Photonics West exhibition. A great many companies better known for their nonmedical products were showing products aimed at the biomedical area.

And the portion of some firms' involvement in the biophotonics field was surprising -- in some cases as much as 10 to 15 percent of sales. Indeed, the biomedical story was not contained only in the BIOS portion of Photonics West. Biophotonics appears to be poised to become an important segment of the overall photonics industry.

Just a few of those companies and products found on the exhibit floor at Photonics West:

Opnext of Japan, which introduced its HL7001/7002 MG laser diode designed for use in medical applications such as blood analysis and endoscopy. According to the company, the 705-nm diode laser permits smaller biomedical measuring devices while offering high output power, reliability and the low operating current required by medical applications.

Scotland-based Intense Ltd. announced its Power Pack 360, a fiber-coupled laser module, which is aimed at medical and display applications such as photodynamic therapy and medical imaging. The device provides up to 2.5 W at 630 nm from a 600-µm fiber. A turnkey system, it combines a forced-air heat sink and cooling fan, monitor photodiode, thermoelectric cooler and thermistor. According to the company, the system provides medical system developers with a turnkey package, which can reduce overall system cost.

Texas Instruments was displaying a device from one of its customers that employed its digital light processing (DLP) technology in an imaging system that directly illuminates veins and arteries. The company’s digital micromirrors -- such as the Discovery 4000 highlighted at the show -- will, TI says, provide developers with a tool to develop projection and spectroscopic applications across a broad spectrum of wavelengths.

Acceleware of Calgary, Alberta, presented its Accelerator, which it said can bring supercomputing to the desktop. The company cited uses of its product in research involving early detection of breast cancer and the development of implantable medical devices.

Photonics West moves to San Francisco

2008-01-29T13:30:00.001-05:00

C'est vrai que les tentes dehors c'etait pas le top.

Source: optics.org

Photonics West will be held in San Francisco from 2010.

This morning the editorial team reporting from Photonics West learned from Eugene Arthurs, SPIE's executive director, that the event will be held in San Francisco's Moscone Center in 2010. The reason is clear: the San Jose Convention Center is no longer able to cater for the growing number of exhibitors and delegates who visit the show every year.

Indeed, for the first time this year the show organizers could not accommodate all the exhibitors in the Main Hall and the South Hall, itself a semi-permanent extension to the main convention center. An extra tent has had to be added onto one end of the South Hall, which is reported to leak when it rains.

Photonics West en images

2008-01-29T13:25:00.000-05:00

Source: Optics.org
Ca vous rappelle des souvenirs? Merci de nous envoyer vos photos pour publication!

Boston Micromachines, partner produce 'adaptive optics' kit

2008-01-25T12:00:00.001-05:00

Source: Mass High Tech, spotted by Priya!

Cambridge Boston Micromachines Corp. has paired with California-based Thorlabs Inc. to develop a new Adaptive Optics (AO) toolkit aimed at making such technologies easier and cheaper for researchers, according to executives.
The new product, which includes wavefront sensor technologies from Thorlabs and micro-electromechanical systems-based, or MEMS, deformable mirror systems from Boston Micromachines, is expected to cost four times less than traditional systems, executives said.
The tandem product also includes control and analysis software developed jointly.
Adaptive optics technologies use electromechanical systems to compensate for rapidly changing patterns in light paths. In telescopes, for example, the technology is used to compensate for the changes in light passing through the atmosphere when looking at heavenly bodies.
The technology also has applications in other areas, such as diagnosing eye diseases using retinal imaging, or earthbound, long-distance viewing.
Founded in 1999, privately held Boston Micromachines makes compact deformable mirror products for a variety of applications. The company counts NASA, Lockheed Martin and Boston University among its customers.

SBInet goes mobile with radar

2008-01-25T11:55:00.000-05:00

Source: Washington Technology

The Homeland Security Department is adding mobile radar units to its $8 billion SBInet border surveillance system to provide extra capabilities and fill small gaps in coverage, a senior official said.
Kirk Evans, program manager for SBInet, likened the system to a football team. “We view the mobile system as a linebacker, to plug gaps in certain areas,” he said. DHS purchased 30 mobile radar units from Telephonics Corp. for $14.5 million.
SBInet is the Secure Border Initiative Network border surveillance system under construction along the U.S. land borders. The system is largely made of cameras, radars, sensors and communications equipment mounted on towers. The prime contractor, Boeing Co., has completed the first 28-mile segment in Arizona, which was conditionally accepted by Customs and Border Protection in December and is currently undergoing final testing.
The first units are expected to arrive in March. CBP will test them in the laboratory and, if they pass muster, begin deploying them in Arizona by October, Evans said.
The agency anticipates that imminent deployment of the SBInet surveillance system in parts of Arizona could shift illegal border crossing activity to new locations, Evans said, and CBP wants to be prepared to move the mobile units quickly to those new areas.
“We can put them up faster than we can put up towers,” Evans said.

Newest nano-tool is a laser you can’t see

2008-01-25T11:44:00.000-05:00

Source: R&D Magazine and thank you Priya!
Colorado State University scientists have found a way to dramatically improve the quality of laser light at extremely short wavelengths, according to a paper that was published Sunday online by Nature Photonics.
The groundbreaking discovery covers very short wavelengths of light near 13 nm that are valuable particularly for the semiconductor manufacturing industry, which aims to develop the next generation of faster computer chips using that type of light by 2010 or 2011, said CSU Univ. Distinguished Professor Jorge Rocca, senior author of the research. Rocca collaborated on the Nature Photonics paper with CSU colleagues Yong Wang, Brad Luther, Francesco Pedacci, Mark Berrill, Eduardo Granados and David Alessi."The potential applications are many—ultra-high resolution microscopy, patterning to make nano-devices, and semiconductor industry measurements," Rocca says. "There are many other possibilities that in the future will also include biology."The technology involves the generation of short wavelength light in the extreme ultraviolet or soft x-ray range of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths about 50 times shorter than visible light. These lasers can be used to "see" tiny features, create extremely small patterns and manipulate materials in ways that visible light can't.The research reported in the Nature Photonics paper focused on making the light of lasers operating at 18.9 and 13.9 nm more coherent. Rocca's team generated a little seed of coherent x-ray light, converted the frequency of a visible laser beam to soft x-ray light and obtained a very coherent light at a low intensity. That seed was injected through a plasma amplifier and grew to produce a very high intensity beam of soft x-ray light with extraordinarily high coherence. "Coherent soft x-ray light can be used to measure the properties of materials and directly write patterns with nanoscale dimension," Rocca says. "It can be used to look for extremely small defects in the masks that will be used to print the future generations of semiconductor chips."
To know more, click here.

Imagine Optic remarque par Optics.org a Photonic West!

2008-01-25T11:39:00.000-05:00

Source: optics.org

From the floor: Imagine Optic
The number of new products and innovations on the show floor this year is impressive. Today, I stopped by Imagine Optic's booth (booth 715) and was treated to a demonstration of its new SL-Sys neo system, which uses the company's wavefront sensor technology.
http://optics.org/blog/2008/01/from_the_floor_imagine_optic.html

Bravo!

Le marche OCT: des opportunites a venir

2008-01-25T11:38:00.001-05:00

Source: optics.org
In a year when steady single-digit growth is the norm in the photonics industry, any sector expanding by more than 30% year-on-year demands close attention. According to Greg Smolka, a consultant with 20 years experience of the photonics industry behind him, the market for optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems is benefiting from new technology that is opening up the IP landscape - and enabling more companies to enter the market.
In his talk at today's Lasers and Photonics Marketplace Seminar, Smolka pointed out that until 2006 the only player in the OCT market was Carl Zeiss, which introduced its first time-domain OCT system for ophthalmic imaging applications in 1996. Crucially, this first-generation technology was by covered a patent that prevented other players from launching competing products.
More recently, the introduction of Fourier domain OCT has fundamentally altered the competitive landscape. This technology improves both the accuracy and definition of images, and also increases scan speeds by a factor of 50-100. What's more, it's not covered by the original patent.
As a result, around 19 companies have launched commercial Fourier domain OCT products, and in so doing have extended the technique's capabilities from ophthalmology to other biomedical applications such as dentistry and cardiovascular imaging. According the Smolka, this will enable the OCT market to grow by 33.5% year-on-year, increasing from just less than $200m in 2007 to $800m in 2012.
So what is the opportunity for photonics firms? Smolka explained that each OCT system - which sells for anything from $50,000 for ophthalmic systems to $120,000 for cardiovascular applications - requires either an superluminescent or, increasingly, a 1310 nm tunable laser. Other optical components are also integrated into the system, including CCD or CMOS image sensors, galvonometers, and fiber-optic probes.
What's more, Smolka says that developers of OCT systems are typically focused on end applications, and are looking for technology partners to develop and supply the specialist optical components. One consequence, he says, will be an increase in the number of start-ups bringing new products to market, as well as significant merger and acquisition activity.

Ultrafast anti-counterfeiting: Eric Mottay cite dans optics.org!

2008-01-25T11:35:00.000-05:00

Source: optics.org

Counterfeiting is a major problem in many industries. Enter French firm Amplitude Systemes and its collaborators, who have developed an internal engraving system for transparent materials that makes use of a femtosecond laser. The system is the end result of a project called NAGINELS, which stands for non-aggressive glass internal engraving laser system.
According to Eric Mottay of Amplitude Systemes, the aim of the system is to engrave a code on the primary glass container - which could be, for example, a perfume bottle, a syringe for use in the pharmaceutical industry or even a bottle of champagne.
"The key requirements are that the laser should have no impact on the glass, no impact on the substance/liquid enclosed in the glass and be tamper-proof," said Mottay. "Sources such as CO2 lasers engrave the surface. Nanosecond laser pulses allow internal engraving but they also create micro-cracks in the glass which can cause the product to deteriorate."
The NAGINELS instrument uses a ytterbium diode-pumped amplifier system emitting 500 femtosecond pulses to write a datamatrix into the glass. This datamatrix is essentially an array of tiny squares in pre-determined pattern. The idea is that the datamatrix is discrete so an array measuring 1x1 mm could be present somewhere on a bottle for example or a smaller 60 x 60 micron array could be written into a syringe.
In the fourth quarter of 2007, the project partners set up a company called TRACKINSIDE to commercialize NAGINELs technology.

Vu a Photonic West: le marche des lasers en 2008

2008-01-25T11:34:00.000-05:00

Source: optics.org

There's no doubt that the effects of instability in the US economy - and increasingly the global financial marketplace - has introduced even more uncertainty into what has always been an inexact science. According to Anderson, the biggest unknown is how falling consumer confidence, particularly in the US, might impact on global laser sales.
The good news, he says, is that for the moment at least it appears that high-tech firms have been shielded from the broader economic malaise. Figures released by Anderson show that sales of all types of lasers increased by around 9% in 2007 to reach $6.9 billion. He also forecasts continued growth in 2008 - albeit at a lower rate of 7% - which will bring the total laser market to $7.3 billion.
Beyond that headline figure, Anderson says that sales of non-diode lasers rose by 8% in 2007 to account for $3.08 billion of the total, driven primarily by materials processing applications as well as double-digit growth in lasers for scientific and medical applications. That growth rate is expected to decline to 7% in 2007, in part due to weakening markets in lasers for materials processing in microelectronics. Looking at the detail, one interesting prediction is that sales growth for fiber lasers is expected to slow from a massive 39% in 2007 to a more modest 16% in 2008.
For diode lasers, revenues grew by 10% in 2007 to reach $3.81 bn, buoyed by a rapid expansion in FTTx deployments. According to Bob Steele of Strategies Unlimited, growth is likely to slow to 7% in 2008 - for the first time breaking through the $4 billion mark - with gains expected in 405 nm lasers in next-generation DVD systems and high-power laser diodes for fiber laser pumps. However, Steele also cautioned that declining customer spending could impact sales of laser diodes into consumer electronics applications.

Vu a Photonic West: des nouvelles techniques de diagnostic du cancer

2008-01-25T11:27:00.000-05:00

Source: optics.org

Hot Topic papers, in the main, concentrated on the diagnostic capabilities of photonics. Mary-Ann Mycek, associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), provided a neat case study with a talk entitled "Probing pancreatic disease using tissue optical spectroscopy".
Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the US and has a five-year survival rate of only 4%. The biggest problem is late detection - due in large part to the inaccessibility of the organ, which complicates diagnosis via conventional radiological procedures (e.g. ultrasound, CT and MRI).
Subsequent treatment comprises lengthy and complex surgery, after which many patients turn out to have pancreatitis (a treatable inflammation of the organ) rather than pancreatic cancer. For any would-be optical interrogation scheme, the task is therefore to differentiate a cancerous organ from one affected by pancreatitis.
With this in mind, Mycek and her colleagues have studied fluorescence and reflectance data for normal and diseased pancreas tissue. In what's claimed to be the first limited pilot study to optically probe freshly excised human pancreatic tissue and in vivo human xenografts in mice, they observed increased reflectance from cancer cells (versus normal tissue and tissue exhibiting pancreatitis).
They've linked this behaviour to changes in optical scattering properties caused by the increased size of the cell nucleus in cancerous tissue. "Although the preliminary studies are small, optically detectable biomarkers appear to be consistent with disease progression," noted Mycek.
The other Hot Topics papers covered a diverse range of subject matter. Specifically:
• Monitoring and predicting chemotherapy using diffuse optics
• Imaging and treatment of cancer using gold nanoparticles
• Photoacoustic microscopy and computed tomography
• Real-time quantitative microscopy on the nanometre scale
• Multidimensional fluorescence imaging
• Single-molecule super-resolution imaging and trapping
• Spectroscopy for diagnostic and interstitial photodynamic treatment control.

Des news de Fianium

2008-01-17T11:48:00.001-05:00

Source: newsletter Fianium

Eugene, OR - December 3, 2007 - First application of optical supercontinuum lasers in confocal light absorption and scattering spectroscopic (CLASS) microscopy, was reported in a recent publication in Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science by researchers at Harvard Medical School. The experiments were conducted using Fianium's SC450 white light source based on an ultrafast high power fiber laser integrated with photonic crystal fiber.

"CLASS microscopy combines the principles of lightscattering spectroscopy (LSS) with confocal microscopy. LSS is an optical technique that relates the spectroscopic properties of light elastically scattered by small particles to their size, refractive index, and shape. The multispectral nature of LSS enables it to measure internal cell structures much smaller than the diffraction limit without damaging the cell or requiring exogenous markers, which could affect cell function. Canning the confocal volume across the sample creates an image. CLASS microscopy approaches the accuracy of eletron microscopy but is nondestructive and does not require the contrast agents common to optical microscopy. It provides unique capabilities to study functions of viable cells, which are beyond the capabilities of other techniques" - explain researchers from Prof. Lev Perelman's group at Harvard.
Authors of the article also point out that; "System design provides for broadband illumination with either a Xe arc lamp for the measurements performed on extracted organelles in suspension, or a supercontinuum laser (Fianium SC450-2) for the measurements performed on organelles in living cells. The lamp source provides stable, continuous wave operation over a very wide spectral range, whereas the supercontinuum source provides very high brightness, enabling near-real time acquisition of images." Full publication is available for the next four months at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/44/17255.

Des news d'Optimum

2008-01-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

Source: Newsletter Optimum

J'avais rencontre le DG de cette boite de services, Randall Chinnock.

We are in the process of spinning out a company to commercialize our in-vivo, real-time, optical cancer detection technology. In collaboration with Irving Bigio at Boston University's Biomedical Engineering Labs and other researchers, over $12M has been invested in this technology over the past 12 years. The technology is deployable on the skin, as well as anywhere in the body accessible to an endoscope or a needle. Human studies conducted in organ systems that include the bladder, breast, prostate, and colon have yielded extremely promising results.

The technology, based on the technique of Elastic Scattering Spectroscopy (ESS), uses optical fiber to deliver flashes of white light to tissue. Backscattered light is collected by a pair of additional fibers that carry the light to spectrometers. A sophisticated computer algorithm processes the spectra and instantly determines whether the tissue is malignant. The algorithm correlates to cellular microstructures that a histopathologist examines on a slide made from an excisional biopsy, including enlarged nuclei, enlarged and proliferated mitochondria, and changes in cellular chromatin.
The ultimate goal of this "optical biopsy" is to provide instant diagnosis without excision. In addition to providing immediate results, the number of "samples" taken is limitless because sampling only involves flashes of light. Applications in screening, surveillance, and surgical margin demarcation are planned.

Budget cuts threaten Fermilab's viability

2008-01-17T11:41:00.001-05:00

Source: HS Daily Wire, le 20 decembre

Fermilab's 2008 budget will be 17 percent smaller than the 2007 budget; 200 of its 1,900 scientists will be laid off next month; NOνA's neutrino experiment, Tevatron collider, other programs to be halted; one scientist says: "Effectively, Fermilab is put on a glide-path to shut down after 2011"
Those who worry about the fact that the United States is falling behind China and Europe in scientific research and science education -- and anyone who cares about the U.S. welfare and national security should be deeply worried about these pernicious trends -- should now be even more worried. Here is why: The last U.S. lab dedicated to particle physics will be forced to lay off about 200 of its 1,900 scientists next month as its 2008 budget will be nearly 17 percent smaller than expected. The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, will also be forced to stop development work on all future accelerator-based projects, a move that threatens the viability of the forty-year-old Department of Energy (DOE) lab. The budget decisions, part of a $550 billion omnibus spending package which Congress approved this week, call into question the U.S. commitment to particle physics as a whole, says Fermilab director Pier Oddone. "There's a policy question for the government and for Congress," he says. "Do we want to stay in particle physics or not?"

Le Vigiscan gagne a etre connu...et vite!

2008-01-17T11:36:00.000-05:00

NON! raytheon n'etaient pas les premiers...GRRR...faut que ca se sache!

Source: Space War Express
Raytheon Launches 360-Degree Sensor To Enhance Border Security Capabilities

Raytheon has launched the first wide-area, long-range sensor that provides an unblinking 360-degree view of target areas. The Eagle-300(TM) sensor, which Raytheon is manufacturing for SkyWatch LLC, enhances Raytheon's global border security and critical infrastructure protection capabilities.
"The Eagle-300 supports Raytheon's persistent surveillance strategy that emphasizes the ability of collection systems to linger on demand in an area and detect, locate, and track a target," said Gene Blackwell, Raytheon vice president of the company's Rapid Initiatives Group. "It also facilitates predictive techniques that enable forces to stop an attack before it starts. As part of a network operational center, it uses forensic techniques that enable forces to rewind an event, similar to a digital video recorder, and assist in an investigation."
The Rapid Initiatives Group is a Raytheon Network Centric Systems team that specializes in taking customer projects from concept to reality in a fraction of the normal procurement times. The RIG, in conjunction with Raytheon Vision Systems, integrated and tested the Eagle-300, so that it was ready for use in less than eight months.
"Sensors on the market currently provide a narrowly focused viewpoint so a single sensor would have to rotate 360 degrees to provide full coverage, which would not be continuous," said Harry "Skipper" Darlington, IV, SkyWatch chairman and CEO. "With the Eagle-300, you have the full 360-degree view continuously. That helps our customers accelerate their capability to detect, classify and respond to threats."
The sensor can be produced in 90-degree, 80-degree, 270-degree or 360-degree increments. Eagle-300 is composed of commercial off-the-shelf products and can be integrated to augment existing systems as part of a higher level operational architecture, or used as a stand alone sensor.

On etait a Paris mais ca ne nous a pas echappe...

2008-01-17T11:29:00.000-05:00

Un beau deal pour Zygo...

ZYGO Receives Flat Panel Display Orders Exceeding $7 Million MIDDLEFIELD, CT, Dec 19, 2007 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX News Network) -- Zygo Corporation's (NASDAQ: ZIGO) Metrology Division announced orders exceeding $7 million today for their OneShot™ and ClearShot™ process control products. The orders were from multiple fabs and spread equally between the two products.
"We are pleased with the positive response our new ClearShot™ product has received from our display customers," said Brian Monti, Senior Vice President and General Manager of ZYGO's Display Solutions Business Unit. "Combined with our established OneShot™ tool, we are enthusiastic about the ability of both products to deliver yield-enhancing solutions to our customers."
ZYGO's OneShot™ product is a color filter metrology tool used for process analysis and in-line control of critical manufacturing processes like one-drop fill. Since introduction, ZYGO has installed over 60 OneShot™ tools in LCD fab applications, ranging in size from G3 - G8. Initially used for Photo Spacer height measurement and feed-forward control of the ODF (One Drop Fill) process, the product use has expanded to include the simultaneous measurement of other key parameters such as film thickness, critical 2D dimensions, and vertical alignment features.
The ClearShot™ tool represents ZYGO's newest product offering, and performs 2D and 3D review of yield robbing particles in the cell process, improving the efficiency of repair equipment that eliminates these particles from the process. The tool operates as an in-line review tool, accepting and acting upon automated optical inspection information to review and sort out particles that will damage the panel (killer defects) from those that will have no quality impact. These "judgment rules" allow panel makers to enhance the throughput of their production lines, and enable the use of fewer repair tools.

BIOMEDICAL IMAGING: OCT images the developing heart in vivo

2008-01-17T11:24:00.000-05:00

Source: Laser Focus World

Congenital heart disease affects 36,000 babies born in the United States annually. The causes of these abnormalities are largely unknown because of a lack of adequate tools to assess the genesis of these cardiac anomalies. Avian (chicken and quail) and murine (mouse) hearts develop similarly to humans and have become the most popular animal models in heart-development research. The gestation period for both avian and murine embryos is 21 days. At the onset of beating, the heart exists as a straight tube that moves blood by peristalsis, much as the gut moves food. Over the next couple of days, the heart rapidly grows and transforms into a four-chambered pulsatile pump through processes known as looping and septation. It is in this dramatic time period where many abnormalities can begin to manifest.
Because of the small size of the embryonic heart (less than 2 mm across), standard modalities for imaging internal structures, such as magnetic-resonance imaging and ultrasound, do not have adequate resolution, especially when investigating early development. This has left researchers to rely upon bioassays, video microscopy, and modeling to answer their most poignant questions. Clearly, an in vivo imaging tool with high spatiotemporal resolution and an appropriate field of view for the looping stages (millimeters) would be important for illuminating how the heart develops.
OCT
Optical-coherence tomography (OCT) measures coherently back-scattered light to generate cross-sectional images of biological tissue.1 With the use of low-coherence and near-infrared light, resolutions of 2 to 15 µm to a depth of 1 to 2 mm in cardiac tissue can be achieved, making OCT ideal for studying the developing heart. Optical-coherence tomography has been used to image the embryonic heart in several animal models, including the avian embryo and murine embryo.2-5
Because OCT is capable of very high imaging rates, it offers the ability to examine tissue morphology dynamically, as well as statically. We are developing OCT technology for a high-throughput phenotyping (classifying the outward physical manifestation and behavior of an organism) system and methods capable of four-dimensional (4-D) longitudinal imaging of early embryonic hearts. These technologies have the potential to expand our understanding of the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that drive normal and abnormal heart development.

Des news de Cilas dans optics.org

2008-01-17T11:17:00.000-05:00

Source: optics.org

Adaptive optics flexes for sharper images

A deformable mirror with 1377 piezoelectric actuators will soon be helping astronomers in Chile to study extra-solar planets in greater detail. Developed by CILAS, the mirror will be deployed on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory and will correct wavefront distortion in real time to produce clear images.
CILAS hopes that the mirror's large number of actuators, together with actuator bandwidth, stroke and accurate control of the optical surface will enable the VLT to provide superb images with high contrast between the star and its companion planet.
The mirror will be installed on the spectro-polarimetric high-contrast exoplanet research (Sphere) instrument, a component of one of VLT's 8m telescopes. Sphere is said to be one of the most powerful and challenging astronomical tools being built. It is a second generation instrument that will be used for the direct imaging and study of extra-solar planets.

CILAS has already delivered fourteen adaptive mirrors to the European Southern Observatory, operators of the Paranal Observatory. It claims that all of its mirrors are optimized for high-resolution imaging and laser beam correction.
The development was funded by the European Southern Observatory and by the FP6 optical infrared coordination network for astronomy project of the European Commission.

Early cancer detection with Raman Early cancer detection with Raman

2008-01-17T11:08:00.000-05:00

Source: Spectroscopy now

Raman spectroscopy could become a new tool in the early detection of wayward cervical cells exposed to human papillomavirus (HPV) that may ultimately turn cancerous. The new approach to detecting neoplasia could avoid false positives and negatives and ultimately reduce cervical cancer rates, and save lives.
There are dozens of variants of human papillomavirus (HPV). This diverse group of viruses commonly infects skin and mucous membranes sometimes causing genital warts and at other times presenting no noticeable symptoms. However, there are certain "high-risk" HPVs transmitted through sexual contact and of these HPV16 is considered to be of most concern because of a known connection with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and other genital lesions that are precancerous. Indeed, HPV is implicated in almost all cases of cervical cancer, some 99.7%, hence the hopefully ubiquitous use of the Pap smear test for the virus among sexually active women.
Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide. Cancer Research UK reports that there are almost 3000 new cases every year in the UK alone, but a mere 1 percent are diagnosed. However, the development of cervical cancer is not rapid, there can be a prolonged precancerous stage during which changes in cervical cells caused by HPV infection might be detected before they become lethal.
Now, writing in the Wiley publication, International Journal of Cancer, Simon Herrington of the Bute Medical School, at the University of St Andrews, Fife, UK, and colleagues there and in the SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, at St. Andrews, have developed a Raman technique for detecting precancerous cells. Their approach could side-step much of the labour-intensive work required of the conventional smear test. It could also significantly reduce the number of false positives that then require follow-up with biopsy, or indeed the false negatives that leave the woman vulnerable to full-blown cervical cancer.
The researchers explain how optical techniques, such as drug-assisted tumour fluorescence, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and other approaches are garnering clinical interest. However, the most non-intrusive objective diagnostics for both in vitro and in vivo testing is, they say, Raman spectroscopy. "Raman spectroscopy has inspired much interest," the researchers say, "as it offers the possibility of objectively characterising a variety of clinical samples based upon the biochemical changes associated with the development of neoplasia." Moreover, it requires no chemical markers, minimal sample preparation and could be used subtly with endoscopy.
The researchers used Raman microspectroscopy to examine live and fixed cultured cells to determine whether it were possible to discriminate between defined cell types.

Cambridge Research lands deep tissue imaging patent

2007-11-29T16:19:00.000-05:00

Source: Mass High Tech

A Woburn company reports it has won a patent for its spectral imaging technology.

The U.S. Patent Office has issued patent No. 10/669,101, for spectral imaging of deep tissue, to Cambridge Research and Instrumentation Inc. The patent covers the use of multispectral imaging combined with spectral unmixing, which is intended to increase clarity of images taken from living creatures.

The patent strengthens the company's position in the in vivo imaging industry, according to its chief science officer.

Cambridge Research and Instrumentation uses liquid crystal technology to build components for medical imaging instruments. The company is privately held and employs 35 people.