Additive manufacturing, such as laser sintering or melting of additive layers, can produce parts rapidly at small volume and in a factory setting. To ensure the additive manufactured parts are of high quality, a real-time non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique is required to detect defects while they are being manufactured. The present invention describes an in-situ (real-time) inspection unit that can be added to an existing additive manufacturing (AM) tool, such as an FDM (fused deposition modeling) machine, or a direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) machine, providing real-time information about the part quality, and detecting flaws as they occur. The information provided by this unit is used to a) qualify the part as it is being made, and b) to provide feedback to the AM tool for correction, or to stop the process if the part will not meet the quality, thus saving time, energy and reduce material loss.

An optical receiver is provided that includes an array of photoreceivers. Each photoreceiver may be configured to receive a respective portion of a speckle pattern generated by interaction between an object beam and a scattering medium and each photoreceiver may be configured to generate respective electrical detection signals for provision to processing circuitry for summing of the electrical detection signals. A photoreceiver may include a collector, first detector and second detectors, and first and second optical splitters. The photoreceiver may be configured to generate a first electrical detection signal and a second electrical detection signal based on a received portion of the speckle pattern.

An aerosol detector system is described for spatially resolved detection of an aerosol distribution in an area. The system includes a wide field polarization preserving telescope having telecentric imaging optics for imaging the earth surface onto a detector that receives phase stepped images from the telescope, A controller is arranged to provide a resulting image as a function of corresponding pixel values of the multiple images to produce an image at a spatially resolved polarization state corresponding to said aerosol substance.

An automatic analysis apparatus includes a reaction vessel configured to contain a reaction liquid in which a measuring object and a reagent are mixed with each other, an irradiation unit configured to irradiate the reaction vessel with irradiation light as predetermined incident light polarization, a measurement unit configured to measure light emitted from the reaction vessel, and a processor configured to process a signal having a specific polarization component obtained from the measurement unit and to analyze the measuring object. The specific polarization component is determined based on the condition of the reaction liquid.

An inspection apparatus includes an optical system, which has a radiation beam delivery system for delivering radiation to a target, and a radiation beam collection system for collecting radiation after scattering from the target. Both the delivery system and the collection system comprise optical components that control the characteristics of the radiation and the collected radiation. By controlling the characteristics of one or both of the radiation and collected radiation, the depth of focus of the optical system may be increased.

A particle analyzer is intended to accurately obtain an aspect ratio and a major axis length or a minor axis length of particles being dispersed in a dispersion medium. The particle analyzer includes a polarization relationship value calculation section to calculate a polarization relationship value whose parameter is light intensity of two kinds of polarization components, an aspect ratio calculation section to calculate an aspect ratio from a polarization relationship value already obtained by the polarization relationship value calculation section by using a relationship between the polarization relationship value and the aspect ratio, a diffusion coefficient acquisition section to acquire a diffusion coefficient indicating the behavior of the particles in a sample, and an axis length calculation section to calculate a major axis length from the aspect ratio already calculated by the aspect ratio calculation section and the diffusion coefficient already acquired by the diffusion coefficient acquisition section, by using a relationship between the diffusion coefficient, the major axis length, and the aspect ratio.

A method and system are presented for use in measuring on patterned samples, aimed at determining asymmetry in the pattern. A set of at least first and second measurements on a patterned region of a sample is performed, where each of the measurements comprises: directing illuminating light onto the patterned region along an illumination channel and collecting light reflected from the illuminated region propagating along a collection channel to be detected, such that detected light from the same patterned region has different polarization states which are different from polarization of the illuminating light, and generating a measured data piece indicative of the light detected in the measurement. Thus, at least first and second measured data pieces are generated for the at least first and second measurements on the same patterned region. The at least first and second measured data pieces are analyzed and output data is generated being indicative of a condition of asymmetry in the patterned region.

An inspection system may include an illumination source to generate an illumination beam, illumination optics to direct the illumination beam to a sample. The system may further include a first collection channel to collect light from the sample within a first range of solid angles and at a first selected polarization. The system may further include a second collection channel to collect light from the sample within a second angular range, the second range of solid angles and at a second selected polarization. The system may further include a controller to receive two or more scattering signals. The scattering signals may include signals from the first and second collection channels having selected polarizations. The controller may further determine depths of defects in the sample based on comparing the two or more scattering signals to training data including data from a training sample having known defects at known depths.

A cuvette carrier comprising: a plurality of walls defining a holding volume for a cuvette; a first and second transmissive region included in the plurality of walls; and a first optical polariser arranged to polarise light passing through the first transmissive region.

Apparatus and associated methods relate to reliably determining both size of large water droplets and density of small water droplets in a multi-modal cloud atmosphere. A pulsed beam of light is projected into the cloud atmosphere and a receiver receives a reflected portion of the projected pulsed beam backscattered by the cloud atmosphere. The received reflected portion is split into first and second parts. First and second parts are directed to first and second detectors, each having a different gain. A ratio of the gains of the first and second detector is greater than 3:1, thereby providing a low-gain detector for producing unsaturated signals indicative of scintillation spike reflection by large water particles and a simultaneous high-gain detector for producing signals indicative of range-resolved reflections by numerous small water particles.