Throughout the machine vision industry, it has always been a challenge to keep products in focus under the camera or to quickly scan various objects at different distances. This can result in the need for additional mechanics or use of multiple cameras at different working distances, additional light sources and a drastic increase of costs and power consumption.

Optotune’s focus tunable liquid lenses provide a versatile, compact and cost-effective solution to these challenges. Thanks to the absence of translational mechanics, Optotune lenses have the possibility to focus within few milliseconds, ensuring robustness and reliability with a lifetime of billions of cycles.

Applications

• Quality control (e.g. liquids, electronics, bottles, LCDs, PCBs, ICs, CCMs)
• Packet sorting, box filling, palletizing
• Bar code reading
• Robot vision
• 3D image stacking

Advantages

• Fast focus within milliseconds
• Large working distance range
• Quicker system installation
• Remote focus control
• Long life time (>1B cycles)

Fast Z focusing and image stability have always been a difficult trade off in the microscopy sector; current technologies such as stepper motor Z actuators or piezo positioners are impacting the throughput in the life science business because of slow speed (stepper motor Z actuators) or because of the small travel and vibration (piezo positioners). It has always been necessary to combine the two different technologies to overcome these bottlenecks, increasing the complexity and the cost of the system.

Optotune focus tunable liquid lenses provide a versatile, compact and cost-effective solution to overcome this challenge. Thanks to the absence of translational mechanics, liquid lenses have the possibility to focus within few milliseconds combining coarse and fine focusing range, ensuring no vibration and reliability with a lifetime of billions of cycles.

A particularly interesting use case is using liquid lenses for z-stacking, to acquire 3D information (DFF) or to compute images with extended depth of field (EDOF).

Applications

• Wide-field microscopy
• Confocal Microscopy
• 3D Light Sheet microscopy
• Spectroscopy
• Digital holographic Microscopy

Advantages

• Fast Z stacking
• No vibrations
• Large working distance range
• Plug and Play device
• Long Life-time (>1B cycles)

Utilize Optotune’s technologies for a range of laser processing systems with following advantages:

• Compact form factor, low weight
• Large z-range, large scanning field
• Precise and fast z-axis control
• 2.5D & true 3D laser processing
• Constant and small spot sizes
• Flexibility and scalability

Optotune’s focus tunable lens with optical feedback is the ideal choice for fast z-axis spot control in laser processing systems, allowing to operate on a range of complex 3D geometries to meet the highest demands. The EL-10-42-OF is suitable for the use with ns- or ps-pulsed lasers at 532 nm and 1064 nm. Combined with the LP-autofocus sensor and the dual axis voice-coil mirrors (VCM) it is the ideal choice for low-mid power applications as for example for laser marking, surface cleaning, welding, structuring or additive manufacturing, that require large deflections in a compact form factor. To allow fast and easy integration into your production process, the Optotune laser processing products can be easily installed directly on the production line or on a robot arm.

Whether measuring the refractive power of the eye, scanning the retina and the anterior eye segment or taking a fundus image - Optotune’s components are used in a range of ophthalmic instruments.

Main benefits:

• Most compact way to correct refraction
• Continuous adjustment in real-time
• +/- 20 diopters spherical, +/- 8 diopters cylindrical (Stokes approach)
• Large clear aperture

There is no more natural way to compensate for visual defects of the human eye than by using focus tunable lenses, which basically work according to the same principles. Currently, most ophthalmic equipment relies on manual selection and alignment of one or several glass lenses to achieve the desired correction. With focus tunable lenses, correction can be done with one single lens, which can be adjusted continuously and precisely in real-time. Spherical lenses can be built with apertures of up to 40mm and optical power ranging from -20 to +20 diopters.

The large optical power tuning range in combination with the excellent dispersion properties allows to build a new generation of fast and compact ophthalmic instruments. Also, our 2D beam-steering mirrors are a great way to guide the diagnostic light beam into different parts of the eye. Maybe our beam-shifting devices will boost your instrument’s resolution.

Optotune has experience with component development for the ophthalmic instruments market and we work with some of the largest companies in the sector.

Applications

• Subjective refraction (Phoropters)
• Autorefractometers (‚fogging‘)
• Visual field analyzer
• Optical coherence tomography (OCT)
• Retina imaging (Fundus camera)

Optotune’s unique light controlling components enable a broad range of medical applications:

• Optical coherence tomography
• Fluorescent imaging
• Endoscopy
• Raman spectroscopy
• Intra-oral scanners
• Laser skin treatment

Optical coherence tomography
Our Dual axis voice coil mirror (VCM) with position feedback allows for a new generation of compact optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems. A key advantage is the single rotation point close to the mirror surface. This allows for example to bring the mirror close to the eye and to scan a larger section of the retina.

Fluorescent imaging
Fluorescent imaging is a widely applied tool in research and in the biotech industry. It relies on narrow-band laser excitation of fluorescent markers. Optotune’s laser speckle reducers help to homogenize and de-speckle the excitation light, which leads to a more reliable detection.

Endoscopy
Optotune’s liquid lens technology can be scaled down to fit into the tip of an endoscope and thus allowing for fast auto-focusing. Please contact us with your challenging requirements. Alternatively, one of our standard tunable lenses can be integrated into the C-mount camera adapter in order to carry out remote-focusing through the relay system.

Intraoral scanners
The dental CAD/CAM market grows rapidly. Dental cameras/intra-oral scanners are at the heart of the paradigm change from traditional to digital workflow. Optotune’s laser speckle reducers and focus tunable lenses allow for more accurate and faster 3D scanning.

Raman spectroscopy
Raman scattering is a growing market triggered by authentication and counterfeit detection, incoming quality control and airport/homeland security. Raman scattering is an inefficient process and therefore requires high-NA objectives that collect as many photons as possible. Those objectives result in low depth of field. Placing a tunable lens in the optical path allows to average the Raman signal over different depths and to adjust variations in working distance in case of handheld devices.

Optotune’s LSR and XPR technologies are used in a range of consumer and professional projectors.

Main advantages include:

• High-resolution, speckle-free projections
• Ultra-compact solution with no mechanics
• Extended pixel resolution

Laser speckle reduction

Lasers are very attractive for projection systems as they offer high contrast, a broad color spectrum and the advantage that images are always in focus. However, lasers do have the inherent problem of speckle: On optically rough surfaces, local interferences occur that manifest themselves as a grainy pattern of spots. This effect causes noise in projected images and reduces the resolution of measurement systems.

Optotune offers a unique solution to this problem. Electroactive polymers (so-called artificial muscles) are used to oscillate a diffuser at a high frequency to average out the speckle patterns. This principle is extremely compact, completely free of mechanics and low in power consumption. Optotune’s Laser speckle reducer can be customized in terms of size, frequency, coatings and diffuser structure to fit a variety of applications:

• Pico projectors
• Business projectors
• Cinema projectors
• Metrology

Extended pixel resolution

Optotune’s XPRs are Extended Pixel Resolution 2- and 4-position Actuators. With a clear aperture ranging from 9mm to 33mm, the standard products are designed for use with Texas InstrumentECD and Pico chipsets, to increase the resolution to be double or fourfold of the native.

Main features of 4-position Actuators

• High angular position accuracy of typically +/- 5 to 8%
• Fast transition times of typically 1.2 to 1.35ms
• Low acoustic noise of typically 20 to 22 dBA at 30cm.
• Fully pre-calibrated at 50 & 60Hz for temperatures up to 75°C

Super-macro focusing

Optotune tunable lenses allow for focusing distances down to 2cm. Whereas the majority of standard mobile phone cameras are limited to a minimum focusing distance of 7cm. Focus tunable lenses allow for fast and reliable super-macro focusing.

• Super-macro (<2cm) possible in wide and tele cameras
• High speed (<5msec)
• Excellent optical quality with wafefront error < 0.12 l (rms)
• Clear apertures up to 6 mm
• Insensitive to barrel tilt
• Image sensor is protected from dust
• Platform for various optical lens barrels

OIS for folded tele cameras

OIS for folded tele cameras. Our tunable prisms allow for fast and robust optical image stabilisation with superior hand shake suppression.

• Fast and easy to control (liquid damping)
• No image rotation on OIS
• Insensitive to mechanical alignment
• Shock resistant
• Low power
• Enables super-resolution (pixel shifting)

Applications

• Mobile phones
• Webcams in laptops & tables
• Smart watches
• Drones

Whether you need an innovative beam-steering solution for your LiDAR system and laser headlights, or you need laser speckle reducers for laser-based automotive HUDs, Optotune offers unique optical actuators to enable your next generation automotive product.

LiDAR

Optotune’s robust voice-coil based 2D mirrors offer a unique advantage in terms of large scan angle paired with a large mirror size. In combination with its compact footprint, its proven reliability and built in optical feedback system, it is an ideal choice for eye-safe, long-range scanning LiDAR systems.

• Compact
• Large mirror size (10-15 mm)
• Large FOV (100°)
• Long lifetime (>1 billion cycles)
• Designed for high vibration and shock resistance
• Wide choice of coating options (including dielectrics)
• Customizations are available on a project basis

Automotive HUD

In the quest of compact, high-brightness AR-type automotive HUDs with large FOV, the industry is moving to RGB laser sources. Lasers allow to build more compact and brighter systems. Unfortunately, these highly coherent light sources often generate unwanted laser-speckles. Optotune has a long experience in de-speckling and homogenizing laser light. While offering certain standard products, Optotune offers tailored laser speckle reducers (LSR) optimized to the client’s optical layout.

• Compact
• Magnetic actuation
• 1D and 2D diffusor movement
• Rectangular clear aperture

In addition to de-speckling, Optotune’s XPR® platform offers simple means to increase the limited resolution of today’s DLP® -based systems.

Adaptive headlights

Laser headlamps’ benefits are compelling: a near parallel beam of light 1’000 times more intense than conventional LEDs but with less than half the energy consumption. Combine it with Optotune’s 2D mirror and you get the most energy efficient adaptive headlight on the market. For your safety it offers a better visibility over the road ahead.

• Compact
• Fast
• Large FOV (100°)
• Robust (>1B cycles)

Applications

• LiDAR
• Automotive HUD
• Dynamic headlights
• Driver monitoring
• Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)