Optical Sensors & Photonics

High-power LED, fibre optics & UV/VIS systems.

Optical instrument design, high-speed analogue electronics and signal processing combined into precision sensing — from invisible eye-safe laser detection and phosphorescence sensing to multi-channel measurement, with calibration and signal chains built in.

Our in-house expertise in optical instrument design, high-speed analogue electronics and signal processing has come together to create innovative products.

Eye-Safe Infrared Laser Sensor

Industrial laser sensors for measuring distance or detecting the presence of objects are widely available. However, they are usually Class 2 or higher, not safe to use unshielded in public areas, and they use visible, hazardous red lasers.

We were approached to design a laser sensor to detect the winning outcome of a roulette wheel. Commercial laser sensors are not safe for this application because the light scatters off highly polished surfaces, putting casino patrons at risk of laser exposure above the permitted levels — and the red laser is unsightly and distracting.

Our laser sensor uses infrared light, so it is completely invisible. Advanced optical and electronic design allowed us to reduce the power level to less than 0.3 mW, making it inherently safe even for continuous direct viewing, and internal monitors prevent any foreseeable failure from causing an unsafe power output.

The detection beam is extremely narrow and focusable, allowing selective detection of the ball even in challenging wheel designs such as those with mirrored or decorated surfaces. The sensor is extremely miniature — only 20 × 10 × 10 mm — and connects to the control electronics by fibre optic, allowing for more ambitious and aesthetic mechanical designs.

Orthogonal coding of the light signals gives immunity to ambient light, and up to 8 sensors can be used in a single wheel with no possibility of interference, even if the lasers are aimed at the same object.

Roulette Wheel On-Rim Reader

A high-precision optical reader that captures the winning number on any roulette wheel — the same eye-safe infrared sensing applied to live gaming, with no hardware modification to the wheel.

Handheld Phosphorescence Detector

We developed a handheld, keyfob-size detector for detecting and identifying the type and concentration of security inks on documents and products. Able to operate reliably and accurately in everyday environments and used by customs and law enforcement, these sensors illuminate the target with pulses of high-intensity infrared light at various wavelengths, then detect the tiny quantity of light returned by phosphorescence at a different wavelength. The returned light is classified by response amplitude and decay time to identify the varieties of security ink present; mixtures of ink are proprietary and can be used to prove product or document authenticity and verify duty-paid stickers.

Because only a low concentration of ink is used and the phosphorescence decays in a few milliseconds, the electronic design is challenging — it must measure a tiny signal immediately after the optical and electronic components have been saturated by the large transmitted pulse.

The detector is low-power, so it can be used hundreds of times before recharging, and gives audio and visual feedback to the operator. The same technology has been applied to non-invasive glucose-level detection for diabetics.

Fibre Optic Spectrometer

A fibre-optic-coupled UV/Visible spectrometer for inline and bench-scale spectral monitoring, developed for our flow-chemistry and laboratory instruments.

Core Capabilities

High-power optical systems for science and industry — liquid-cooled LED modules, spectral output control and fibre-coupled monitoring engineered for reproducible, high-intensity performance.

How it works

Optical & spectral design

We design high-power optical systems and tune their spectral output for the application — for example our batch photoreactor's 12 independently driven LED positions, engineered for reproducible, high-intensity photochemistry.

Thermal & power integration

High optical power means heat and current to manage. We build liquid-cooled LED lamp modules and high-power drive electronics, as in our continuous-flow photoreactor platform that converts a temperature-controlled coil reactor into a continuous photochemistry source.

Inline optical monitoring

We close the loop with measurement: our fibre-coupled UV/VIS Spectrometer provides inline and bench-scale spectral monitoring, so output and reaction progress can be tracked in real time rather than sampled offline.