Choose ONE from the following 2008 nominees:

Stratophase
(Romsey, UK)
Based on an optical silicon micro-chip with an integral Bragg grating, the Spectrosens sensing unit for biochemial detection of toxins, viruses, and bacteria in real-time uses a fiber optic cable to transmit a conditioned beam of light to the chip. When target agents or contaminants are carried in liquid across the surface, tiny changes in sample composition can be detected by precise and continuous monitoring of the wavelength of light reflected from the sensor. Pre-treating the surface to make it sensitive to certain biological or chemical reactions makes it a biochemical detector. The technology is ideal for food, beverage, and pharmaceutical manufacturing industries, as well as drug discovery and process control.

DILAS
(Tucson, AZ)
Based on a single diode laser array, new conduction-cooled, fiber-coupled 1940nm diode laser modules generate output power of 6W, 12W, and 18W using a standard 600µm fiber bundle with a numerical aperture of <0.22 and SMA-905 fiber connector. Easily integrated into OEM equipment, these sealed, conduction-cooled, fiber-coupled modules feature options like visible pointer, serial fiber interlocks, and user exchangeable protection window. They are primarily targeted at the medical market for therapeutic dermatology and surgery, and the industrial market for material processing applications.

Point Source
(Hamble, UK)
The iFLEX-Mustang is a fiber-coupled solid-state laser with on-board modulation. Using single-mode and polarization preserving fiber, the iFLEX-Mustang delivers 25mW of power with a polarization extinction ratio of greater than 100:1. With an operating wavelength of 488 or 561nm and output power (from the fiber) of 25mW, the Mustang is suitable for use in biomedical instrumentation and specialized semiconductor metrology. The unit's power can be modulated at up to 2MHz, with a rise and fall time of 150ns and a dynamic range of 30dB. The Mustang is stable to better than 2% over four hours, and has noise of less than 0.3% over the frequency range 20Hz to 2MHz.

Anritsu Company
(Richardson, TX)
The MW90010A Coherent OTDR (C-OTDR) can detect faults with 10-meter resolution, and collect 1.2 million data points for accurate analysis on optical submarine cables up to 12,000 km in length. The C-OTDR captures waveform data, including cable loss, bending loss, and fiber length, and can measure optical submarine cables with optical repeaters spaced at intervals of 80 km or more. Its measurement size of 320 x 177 x 451 mm, and weight of < 17 kg supports easy onsite portability.

Carl Zeiss MicroImaging
(Thornwood, NY)
The Colibri is a patented, high-performance light emitting diode (LED) light source for fluorescence microscopy. The narrow band LEDs replace conventional white light sources to produce extremely high contrast images with an excellent signal-to-noise ratio, enabling the detection of weak signals and fine details in applications ranging from routine biomedical research to complex live cell imaging. The intensity of the narrow-band LEDs can be quickly and accurately set for any wavelength and exactly adapted to the specimen.

HGH Infrared Systems
(Cambridge, MA)
The IR Revolution 360 is a 20° vertical, 360° horizontal field of view (FOV) panoramic infrared camera for security and surveillance. The sensor contains approximately 3 million pixels (10,000 x 288). The detector is based on mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe) imaging technology and operates in the 8-12 micron wavelength, the long-wave infrared (LWIR) region. The high sensitivity (<25 mK) IR camera detection range, without image distortion, is up to 1 kilometer (km) for a human figure, up to 1.5 km for an automobile, and up to 6 km for a boat or ship. Other features include auto detection and tracking, a motion alarm, and an area-of-interest zoom. The IR Revolution 360 is housed in a compact, environmentally-sealed case that can easily be mounted.

Keyence Corp.
(Woodcliff Lake, NJ)
The VK-9700 is a color 3D laser scanning confocal microscope that features 18,000x magnification and 0.001 µm precision, 3D imaging, and superior color performance with operational simplicity. The VK-9700 performs a variety of non-contact 3D measurements that include surface profile, roughness, 3D, and comparative measurements. The 3D display works with the virtual trackball method and the use of a computer mouse to control the viewing angle, lighting angle, zoom level and Z-axis height.

Thanks for voting in the 2008 Readers' Choice Awards.