Photon Inc. is located in San Jose, California, and has manufactured instruments to measure the spatial properties of light from virtually any light source—lasers, laser diodes, light emitting diodes, optical fiber, waveguides, VCSELs or quantum dots—with exceptional accuracy repeatability and reliability for over 20 years. Photon offers unique solutions to difficult optical challenges and backs them up with superior after sales service and support. Over the years, Photon has emerged as the de facto standard in laser beam measurement.

People choose and use Photon Instruments because…

• Photon provides some of the most accurate and easiest to use instruments for measuring laser beams, collimating optical systems, aligning optical components and characterizing laser and light sources.

• Photon instruments enable fast and accurate analysis of both near- and far-field irradiance distribution patterns, providing ISO Standard laser beam parameters such as beam width, centroid, power, Gaussian fit, M² propagation factors, and optical fiber parameters such as Effective Area (A_eff), Mode-Field Diameter (MFD), Numerical Aperture (NA), and encircled energy.

• Photon instruments are available in the UV, visible, near-, mid-, and far infrared with complete spectral response from ~200nm to over 1000µm and power handling capacity from nanowatts to kilowatts for applications in education, research and development, manufacturing and quality control.

Photon’s spectrum of instruments include…

• NanoScan™, the newest member of the Photon family of slit based profilers, provides nanometer accuracy and precision for both beam pointing and width measurements. It allows rapid, precise optical alignment and component assembly as described for BeamScan below, but with orders of magnitude greater precision and 12-bits of dynamic range. Software- controlled scan speed and a "peak-connect" algorithm allow measurement of both CW and kHz pulsed lasers.

• BeamScan^® has been universally accepted as the standard of laser beam measurement for over 20 years due to its ease-of-use and accuracy. Photon was the first to use two slits to obtain orthogonal beam widths with one mechanical motion, providing real-time measurements every tenth of a second (10Hz update rate). NanoScan and BeamScan instruments are available in a wide variety of sizes and detector types for use in numerous applications across the light spectrum.

• The High-Power NanoScan™ measures high-power beams from UV to far infrared. It is capable of handling kilowatt CO₂ laser beams at 10.6µm and hundreds of watts at 1064nm Nd:YAG wavelengths. UV beams of several tens of watts can also be measured with the HP NanoScan.

• BeamProfiler™ family of camera-based profiling solutions offers software and frame grabbers for both analog and digital cameras,as well as two new cameras:The USBeamPro 10-bit CMOS digital profiler,and the FireWire BeamPro, a versatile,portable 12-bit digital CCD camera.Photon’s camera systems are designed to fit easily into the optical path;innovative variable attenuators for increased operating range and ease-of-use are also available.

• LD8900™ family of far-field profilers employs unique goniometric radiometer technology to provide real-time measurements of divergent light sources. The patented scanning method requires moving neither the source nor the detector to obtain full 3-D hemispheric irradiance measurements with far greater resolution and far less alignment headaches than lens-camera systems, and much greater speed than traditional goniometric techniques.

• LD8900HDR, the highest dynamic range system, is designed to measure MFD, A_eff, and NA in fiber and waveguides according to the TIA/EIA Standards. It will measure the true 3D profiles of these and other optical components with up to 93dB dynamic range.

• LED Profiler, which generates high dynamic range light intensity profiles of LEDs. It is important to understand the beam profile of an LED to create more efficient, repeatable, and effective LED luminaires and sources for new applications such as interior lighting, biotechnology and defense. The LED Profiler generates results in less than 1/100 the time required using comparable techniques. Photon's patented goniometric radiometry technology addresses the unique challenges presented by profiling LEDs, where the highly divergent light involved makes accurate profiling problematic. The system characterizes the LED profile over a 260 degree wide field-of-view, and generates a complete 3D profile of the test source. It also determines the power within a cone oriented along the optical axis of the LED, which is becoming increasingly recognized as an important parameter for device performance. A thermoelectric-cooled vacuum chuck option is also available to test bare-chip LEDs over a range of temperatures.

Photon’s unique and dynamic software provides…

• Familiar Microsoft Windows^® environment—standard file manipulation and user interface.

• High flexibility—customizable views and user-selectable data analysis parameters and user-friendly graphical user interfaces.

• ActiveX server capability, which allows automation of instrument operation through LabVIEW^®, Visual Basic or C++ programming, and the transfer of raw data and computer parameters to other Windows programs, such as or Excel^®.

• An available SDK for integration of BeamScan into automated test equipment applications.