A method of analyzing a material (12) comprising at least one analyte, wherein analyte-wavelength-specific measurements are interspersed with reference measurements (80), and wherein response signals obtained for the reference measurements (80) are used for one or more of calibrating an excitation radiation source (26) for generating said excitation radiation, calibrating said detection device, recognizing a variation in the measurement conditions by comparing results of individual reference measurements (80), adapting the analyte measurement procedure (78) with respect to one or more of the entire duration thereof, the absolute or relative duration of analyte-wavelength-specific measurements for a given analyte-characteristic-wavelength, or terminating and/or restarting the analyte measurement procedure, and adapting the analysis carried out in the analyzing step.

Disclosed herein is an apparatus (10) for analyzing a material (12) comprising at least one analyte, said apparatus (10) comprising a measurement body (16) having a contact surface (14) suitable to be brought in thermal contact or pressure-transmitting contact with said material (12), an excitation radiation source configured for irradiating excitation radiation into the material (12) to be absorbed therein, and a detection light source for generating a detection light beam (22) travelling through at least a portion of said measurement body (16) or a component included in said measurement body, wherein said detection light beam is directed to be totally or partially reflected at said contact surface (14), wherein said contact surface (14) of the measurement body is curved in at least one principal direction in the area where the detection light beam (22) is reflected.

A refractive index measurement method uses an interference optical system which divides light from a light source having a plurality of discrete wavelengths into test light and reference light, causes the test light transmitted through the target to interfere with the reference light, and detect the interference light. The refractive index measurement method determines a first optical delay amount of the interference optical system so that a first and a second wavelength become adjacent to a wavelength corresponding to an extremal value of a phase of the interference light, measures phases of interference light at the first and second wavelengths at the first optical delay amount, and calculates a phase difference between a plurality of the discrete wavelengths at a predetermined optical delay amount using the first optical delay amount, the phases of the interference light at the first and second wavelengths to calculate the refractive index of the target.

A detection system for detecting analytes in a sample, and methods of making and using the detection system, are disclosed. The detection system includes at least one sensor having a substrate and an optical interference layer on the substrate. The optical interference layer includes a plurality of sample segments, wherein two or more of the plurality of sample segments are configured to have different affinities to two or more analytes in the sample. The detection system further includes at least one light source configured to illuminate the two or more of the plurality of sample segments, and at least one image detector configured to detect an interference spectrum from each of the two or more of the plurality of sample segments illuminated by the light source, thereby detecting the two or more analytes in the sample.

A system and method for the monitoring of carbon dioxide (CO2) for chemical contaminants. The carbon dioxide monitoring system includes a contaminant sensor that is configured to detect trace amounts of contaminants in CO2 that is pumped through it in real time. The contaminant sensor includes an interferometer configured to track the amount of contaminants.

The present invention relates to a method for calibrating a measuring microscope which may be used to measure masks, in which a calibration mask is utilized in a self-calibration algorithm in order to ascertain error correction data of the measuring microscope, wherein, in the self-calibration algorithm, the calibration mask is imaged and measured in various positions in the measuring microscope in order to ascertain one or more portions of the error correction data, wherein the surface profile of the calibration mask is ascertained and utilized when determining the error correction. Moreover, the invention relates to a measuring microscope and a method for operating same.

An interferometric chip is provided that includes a substrate having one or more waveguide channels having a sensing layer thereon. Related methods are also provided.

The invention relates to a device comprising a first optical Mach-Zehnder interferometric sensor (MZI1) with a large FSR, wherein a plasmonic waveguide (107) thin-film or hybrid slot, is incorporated as transducer element planar integrated on Si3N4 photonic waveguides and a second optical interferometric Mach-Zehnder (MZI2), both comprising thermo-optic phase shifters (104, 106) for optimally biasing said MZI sensor (MZI1) and MZI as variable optical attenuator VOA. It further comprises an overall chip (112), being remarkable in that it comprises a set of Photonic waveguides (103) with a high index silicon nitride strip (303, 603), which is sandwiched between a low index oxide substrate (SiO2) and a low index oxide superstrate (LTO); Optical coupling structures (102, 109) at both ends of the sensor acting as the optical I/Os; an Optical splitter (102) and an optical combiner (109) for optical splitting at the first junction (102) of said first sensor (MZI1) and optical combining at the second junction (109) of said first MZI (MZI1); a variable optical attenuator (VOA) with said additional second MZI (MZI2), which is nested into said MZI1 (sensor)), deploying an optical splitter and an optical combiner for optical splitting at the first junction of said additional second MZI (MZI2), and optical combining at the second junction of said second MZI (MZI2); a set of Thermo-optic phase shifters (104, 106) to tune the phase of the optical signal in the reference arm (104, 106) of each said MZI (MZI1, MZI2-VOA); wherein Thermo-optic phase shifters are formed by depositing two metallic stripes parallel to each other on top of a section of the photonic waveguide and along the direction of propagation of light; and a plasmonic waveguide (107) in the upper branch (103) of said first MZI (MZI1), that confines light propagation through coupling to Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPP) at the metal-analyte interface, and method associated thereto.

An optical interferometric LiDAR system to control the main measurement range using active selection of a reference optical path length according to an absolute position of an object to be measured, including: a laser source unit configured to emit light having a variable wavelength; a light dividing unit configured to divide the light into a variable reference arm and a measurement arm; a variable reference arm having a structure for selecting an optical path length of a reference arm; a measurement arm configured to propagate light and receive light reflected from a target object; and a light detecting unit configured to detect an optical signal generated as light passing through the variable reference arm and light passing through the measurement arm cause optical interference.

An optical fiber splitter device comprising at least two optical fibers of different lengths is disclosed for partial or complete compensation of the optical path difference between waves interfering to generate a hologram or an interferogram. Various implementations of this fiber splitter device are described in apparatuses for holographic and interferometric imaging of microscopic and larger samples.