An inspection apparatus is provided that comprises an optical target including a solid host material and a fluorescing material embedded in the solid host material. The solid host material has a predetermined phonon energy HOST.sub.PE. The fluorescing material exhibits a select ground energy level and a target excitation (TE) energy level separated from the ground energy level by a first energy gap corresponding to a fluorescence emission wavelength of interest. The fluorescing material has a next lower lying (NLL) energy level relative to the TE energy level. The NLL energy level is spaced a second energy gap FM.sub.EG2 below the TE energy level, wherein a ratio of the FM.sub.EG2/HOST.sub.PE is three or more.

This invention is to provide a spectroscope that can improve resolution and reduce loss of light intensity and/or distortion of a wave front while enabling detection of the optical spectrum for each of a plurality of polarization components in incident light. The spectroscope is a spectroscope that comprises a first diffraction grating 51 to which at least a transmitted light or a reflected light from an object to be measured enters, which diffracts a first polarization component of the incident light and which transmits a second polarization component that is different from the first polarization component of the incident light without diffraction, and a first light-receiving element 55 that receives a spectrum of the light diffracted by the first diffraction grating 51.

An inspection apparatus is provided that comprises an optical target including a solid host material and a fluorescing material embedded in the solid host material. The solid host material has a predetermined phonon energy HOST.sub.PE. The fluorescing material exhibits a select ground energy level and a target excitation (TE) energy level separated from the ground energy level by a first energy gap corresponding to a fluorescence emission wavelength of interest. The fluorescing material has a next lower lying (NLL) energy level relative to the TE energy level. The NLL energy level is spaced a second energy gap FM.sub.EG2 below the TE energy level, wherein a ratio of the FM.sub.EG2/HOST.sub.PE is three or more.

This invention is to provide a spectroscope that can improve resolution and reduce loss of light intensity and/or distortion of a wave front while enabling detection of the optical spectrum for each of a plurality of polarization components in incident light. The spectroscope is a spectroscope that comprises a first diffraction grating 51 to which at least a transmitted light or a reflected light from an object to be measured enters, which diffracts a first polarization component of the incident light and which transmits a second polarization component that is different from the first polarization component of the incident light without diffraction, and a first light-receiving element 55 that receives a spectrum of the light diffracted by the first diffraction grating 51.

Apparatuses, systems, and methods for Raman spectroscopy are described. In certain implementations, a spectrometer is provided. The spectrometer may include a plurality of optical elements, comprising an entrance aperture, a collimating element, a volume phase holographic grating, a focusing element, and a detector array. The plurality of optical elements are configured to transfer the light beam from the entrance aperture to the detector array with a high transfer efficiency over a preselected spectral band.

An interlaced diffraction grating system and process are disclosed. The interlaced grating system includes an optical dispersive grating with alternating bands of unique grating densities wherein the number of unique grating densities is greater than or equal to two. The optical dispersive grating may be reflective or transmissive, and it may be fabricated by mechanical ruling, holography, or reactive ion etching of a binary mask. An interlaced grating allows additional utility for both point spectroscopic detection as well as hyperspectral imaging.

A reflective relay spectrometer design based on reflective optical relay systems, which is more compact in physical size and superior in spectral imaging quality than previous designs, is disclosed.

A light modulating device includes a dispersion assembly and a lens assembly, the dispersion assembly is configured to disperse light emitting from a light source into dispersed light which at least includes collimated monochromatic light and non-collimated monochromatic light; the lens assembly includes: at least a first lens component; at least a second lens component disposed in a one-to-one correspondence with the first lens component; a first absorbing layer disposed between the first lens component and the second lens component, the first absorbing layer has an opening, a focus point of the first lens component towards the first absorbing layer coincides with a focus point of the second lens component towards the first absorbing layer, the opening is disposed at the coincident focus point of the first lens component and the second lens component.

A method and apparatus is provided for implementing a parametric down-conversion (PDC)-based calibration comprising calibrating a measuring instrument; disposing a pinhole at a position of a light-emitting sample for which the measuring instrument needs to be calibrated; irradiating a nonlinear crystal with a light source; setting the nonlinear crystal by ensuring a phase-matching wavelength of the nonlinear crystal is set at one boundary of a desired bandwidth; acquiring one or more PDC spectrums by the measuring instrument; obtaining peak values and their corresponding wavelengths from each acquired spectrum; and obtaining a response function based on the peak values and corresponding wavelengths.

A portable spectrometer system is disclosed for more reliable and convenient on-site drug testing. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, the presently disclosed and/or claimed inventive concept(s) relates to a portable spectrometer system having a test strip having a fluorescent indicator, a fluorimeter, and a mobile computing device capable of determining the identity of an unknown substance in the sample.