Featured Editorials

Looking to the future, single-photon detection will enable new applications: increasing LiDAR range while ensuring the laser source remains safe for people’s eyes in autonomous vehicles; secure communications, by detecting the single photons used for 1s and 0s in Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and by detecting entangled photons and calibrating the single-photon generators needed; in quantum computing, both by detecting the single photons used to generate or interrogate qubits; and many more.

Single-photon detection has become a vital tool in many applications, from single-molecule fluorescence, particle characterization through scattering, and quantum cryptography to astronomy, lidar, and more. The concept appears to be simple in principle—one photon creates one electron in a photodiode or when hitting a metal surface—but how easy is it to detect that single electron?

As the silicon chips that power today’s devices and technologies continue to shrink in size, manufacturing processes increasingly necessitate higher-resolution illumination and imaging, better performance, and strict contamination control.

Honoring excellence in program leadership, Qioptiq, an Excelitas Technologies Company, was chosen as the winner of the Supplier System Production category, for the production ramp of its relay optical assembly for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter helmet.

Automatic imaging systems for optical inspection and quality assurance need to resolve ever more detail as tolerances grow more rigid in industries such as electronics, semiconductor and flat panel display manufacturing. Optics experts and application engineers, Arthur Stauder and Alexandra Gaertner, present Excelitas’ new standard high-resolution lens designed specifically for automatic optical inspection (AOI) applications.

Excelitas is pleased to announce that our powerful X-Cite® NOVEM LED Illumination System has been honored as one of the ten best microscopy innovations in 2021 by Microscopy Today magazine.