Aircraft Carrier Flight Deck Optical Communications Link
- Category:
- Ultrasensitive Instrument Design
Photon Budget and Optical Data Receiver
This one was a somewhat similar application for the Navy.
News & EOI Updates
Ad Hoc Optical Battlefield Network: Optical Data Receiver
- Category:
- Ultrasensitive Instrument Design
This was a collaboration with Chris Wieland of Della Enterprises on an Army Research contract.
Read more…Downhole Interferometry: Cavity-Stabilized 1550-nm Laser
- Category:
- Ultrasensitive Instrument Design
This was in collaboration with a start-up in New Mexico called Symphony Acoustics. Downhole measurements are notoriously difficult, and this one was no exception: building a laser that could achieve an Allan variance of 10-10 at 10,000 seconds, and do it 5000 feet down a 2-inch cased drillhole. Due to the casing thickness, the maximum outer diameter of the instrument package was 38 mm, including its own casing and two concentric zones of thermal control.
Read more…Nuclear Nonproliferation: 100-MHz Noise Cancelling Front End
- Category:
- Ultrasensitive Instrument Design
This was in cooperation with Mesa Photonics of Santa Fe NM. It’s part of a DOE program, an advanced deployable solar occultation spectrometer for detecting volatile plumes from clandestine uranium enrichment.
Their scheme uses a really cool technique: solar heterodyne detection. It’s a good illustration of the importance of a photon budget.
Read more…32-Channel IR Detector for Compressive Scanning Camera
- Category:
- Ultrasensitive Instrument Design
A follow-on to the single channel version. This one had to work at very much lower power, which required a new amplifier topology based on local feedback around a very low noise JFET. This was a very fruitful development, which has been used in a number of follow-on designs.
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