Photonics-based imaging devices are playing a key role in security, medicine, biotech, manufacturing and industry.
Main applications are:
- Holography is based on interference patterns and diffraction, to reproduce a 3D light field hologram. Applications include security, e.g., for passports, interferometric microscopy, and sensors.
- Optical coherence tomography (OCT) uses low-coherence light to capture micrometre-resolution images used for medical imaging and industrial non-destructive testing.
- Super-resolution microscopy bypasses the diffraction limit of conventional optics to allow visualization at subcellular level for biotech and nanotech applications.
- Hyperspectral & Multispectral imaging identifies an object by analysing the spectrum produced when it interacts with light. Applications are in astronomy, agriculture, molecular biology, biomedical imaging, geosciences, physics, and surveillance.
- Machine vision (MV) uses cameras and digital image processing techniques to enable imaging-based automatic inspection and analysis e.g., for automatic inspection, process control, and robot guidance in industry.