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Infra-red camera aids optical alignment

An Applied Scintillation Technologies product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Aug 22, 2006

Applied Scintillation Technologies (AST) has been awarded a US Patent (7,075,576) for its compact, low cost CamIR1550 infra-red camera.

Applied Scintillation Technologies (AST) has been awarded a US Patent (7,075,576) for its compact, low cost CamIR1550 infra-red camera.

The product now has patents in both Europe and the USA.

AST Sales and Marketing Director, Stuart Quinn, said: "The CamIR1550 uses our highly specialised knowledge of phosphor selection and coating techniques to offer a highly cost-effective alternative to IR cameras with specially processed detectors".

"This lightweight portable system has high sensitivity (to 0.2uJ/cm2) and is optimised between 1500 and 1600nm, making it ideally suited to applications in the telecommunications industry".

Physically smaller than a 2in cube, the camera can be used with or without a lens to provide real time imaging, with no image lag or fade.

Applications include on and off-site beam finding from communications band emitters, laser alignment of positioning machines, imaging optical outputs of high speed fibre optics and other components, and device alignment.

The real time imaging signal is available in either Pal/CCIR or NTSC/EIA formats.

The CamIR1550 has an optional handheld display which transforms it into a self-contained system for use anywhere in the field, with over three hour's operation time on a single battery charge.

The handheld unit incorporates a 2.5in TFT LCD with 112Kpixel giving high quality grey scale images from the camera.

Tuned partial sensitivity in the ultra-red region of the spectrum allows the scene to be illuminated using a lamp or torch while maintaining sensitivity at 1550nm.

AST also manufactures the CamIR adapter which can be used to enable standard CCD cameras to image in the 1496-1595nm wavelength range.

This conversion optics module is inserted between a large format lens and a CCD camera to give an instant imaging system, converting the 1495-1595nm wavelength band to Si-based CCD detectable wavelengths.