Physics For Tomorrow: Optical Imaging and Sensing Systems

A career path in industry focuses on various products and applications and requires an in-depth knowledge of physics as well as system phenomenology. One topical area of particular interest in industry is sensors. Optical sensors are a broad class of devices for detecting light amplitude, intensity and/or phase. These sensors can range from simple devices (detectors) for threshold detection or a highly complicated system for detecting single photons, measuring the phase variation (wave-front) of an optical system, or a spectrometer used in characterizing the spectral signature of a material.

Optical sensing can encode photons – either through intensity and/or phase, in a temporal and/or spatial manner; e.g. interferometers. These optical sensors and sensing techniques are used in various optical systems with widespread applications in instrumentation, signal processing, spectroscopy, and imaging. They present many design and performance challenges: knowledge of optical, material, and environmental properties that effect sensor performance.

Optical sensors range from micro-probes to large devices used for standoff monitoring and operate across a vast region of the electromagnetic spectrum, from THz to X-rays and are deployed on systems operating in environments from ground to space. An overview of optical sensors and systems with an example of THz chemical detection spectrometers will be presented.