Project Applications
Bio-optics Systems
Bio-optics is the study of ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light interacting with biological systems, light-enabled tools designed to act on or observe biological systems, and light-enabled tools designed to further the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of medical conditions, diseases, and ailments.
Bio-optics systems include surgical devices, clinical diagnostics devices, drug discovery systems, 'lab on a chip' devices, bacterial growth monitoring systems, systems for air and water quality assessment, and many others.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
ASAP® has been developed to simulate real-world performance by taking into account the physics of optical systems, which makes the software ideal for the design and simulation of bio-optics and biophotonic systems. ASAP can simulate entire biophotonic systems, including devices for drug discovery systems, molecular biology research, clinical diagnostics, and surgical applications.
Optical engineers use ASAP to design imaging systems, calculate illumination levels, optimize light uniformity, and evaluate the effects of volume absorption and scatter on the performance of optical systems. Recent bio-optics ASAP projects at Breault Research include design of relay optics in a retinal imaging system, analysis of digital stereoscopic fundus images, design of microarray imaging systems, and modeling of human eye and retinal imagers.
Coherent Systems
From interferometers to fiber coupling, lasers to optical switches, ASAP has the features to simulate coherent and diffractive optics systems. Using ASAP, optical engineers investigate such phenomena as diffraction, interference, polarization, and birefringence. ASAP readily adds coherent propagation to system models. A single model can combine free-space light propagation, Gaussian Beam Decomposition for guided wave propagation, and a unique finite difference Beam Propagation Method (BPM) for photonics calculations. ASAP is extremely accurate, fast, and contains necessary tools to help get the physics right.
Key ASAP Features used in Coherent/Diffractive Systems Design
- Gaussian Beam Propagation method in ASAP allows users to model plane and spherical wave fronts, Hermite-Gauss laser modes, or arbitrary user-defined fields, and propagate them through the optical system.
- ASAP models coherent optical interference effects, so you can visualize and analyze optical systems that utilize coherent illumination.
- BPM makes it relatively easy to transition from the "bulk optics" realm to smaller waveguides, evanescent couplers, fiber branches, and splitters.
Electro-optical Systems
Electro-optical systems involve the generation, transmission, control and conversion of optical energy as a method of transferring information, usually radiometric data.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
Optical engineers use ASAP to simulate end-to-end models of information processing systems, including the source, intervening media, optical subsystems, detectors, conditioning electronics, and the output.
ASAP simulates real-world performance by taking into account the complete physics of optical systems, including scattering, diffraction, reflection, refraction, absorption, and polarization. ASAP is your solution for the design and analysis of electro-optical systems.
Illumination Systems
Most optical systems consist of imaging as well as non-imaging subsystems. The non-imaging, or illumination assembly is used to provide the proper illumination to the imaging system. A common example would be the condenser optics of a projector, which is used to illuminate a slide or LCD, which is then projected to a screen by the imaging optics. It is necessary that the optical engineering software be able to fully model the complete optical system in order to perform a complete analysis of the system.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
ASAP is able to provide a complete end-to-end simulation of illumination systems. Within ASAP, a complete radiometric and imaging assessment can be performed. Highly accurate source models can consider not only source power, but also near and far-field intensity distributions, spectral distribution coherence and polarization. Optical components are described with parameters such as surface shape, refractive index, and thickness as well applied coatings and surface finish properties, which can affect the scattered light in the system. The properties of mechanical components, such as lens mounts, baffles and tubes can also be modeled. ASAP libraries contain data about many optical materials. ASAP also accepts measured data, such as scatter information.
As light is incident on the optical surfaces, the coherence, polarization, amplitude and phase of the light may be modified. Within ASAP, realistic source models can be modeled based on these four parameters. Using the initial properties of the source as well as the information about the optical system, ASAP can provide information about the system power, intensity, irradiance, radiance and color properties at any location — for example at the film gate as well as at the screen location.
ASAP can fully and accurately simulate all the physical properties, which impact the performance of the system as a whole. For example, Fresnel calculations are used to modify the amplitude and polarization of light incident on an optical surface. The incident angle and index of refraction determine the direction of the light at each surface, including any aberrations introduced into the wavefront. This information is used to quantify the performance of the optical system, on either a radiometric or photometric basis.
ASAP models both imaging and non-imaging optical systems, allowing the engineer to perform a thorough and accurate analysis of the performance of the total optical system.
Lightpipes
Lightpipes, sometimes called waveguides, are optical elements that transfer, "pipe," or "guide" light from a source to a lighting task, primarily by the process of total internal reflection (TIR). They are found in all types of devices, in just about every industry, especially the automotive and consumer electronics industries. Lightpipes are produced by the millions, for pennies apiece.
Lightpipe Design is Complicated
Although the plastic part itself might cost only pennies, its injection mold may be on the order of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars to tool. There are also many different performance requirements for systems using lightpipes, with many of them qualitative and not quantitative. Optical-performance requirements and the high-cost of experimental manufacturing make the case for software simulation or virtual prototyping.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
Lightpipe systems involve sources with complicated geometries and photometric characteristics. ASAP not only allows you to create sophisticated extended source models according to their physical properties, it comes with a comprehensive library of more than 180 source models to save you time.
The ASAP smartIGES™ translator lets optical engineers work directly from mechanical designs done in CAD programs without having to remodel complicated system geometries. Within ASAP, powerful scripting capabilities allow lightpipe designers to iterate through several design configurations varying one or many parameters at a time. This lets ASAP users fine tune lightpipe designs and determine acceptable manufacturing tolerances.
When simulating lightpipe systems, millions of rays must be traced to reach statistics that are good enough to predict system performance. The ASAP non-sequential ray-tracing engine is the fastest available, and unlike other programs it doesn't cut corners by approximating surface shapes. With ASAP, you get speed and accuracy.
The interaction of light with lightpipes is physically and mathematically distinguished and defined primarily by coherence, polarization, amplitude, and phase. Given these four characteristics and the optical system behavior, the system's intensity, irradiance (exitance), and radiance can be computed. ASAP, unlike many other analysis programs, can simulate and calculate all of these.
ASAP automatically changes the polarization, amplitude, and phase of light as it interacts with optical components. For example, ASAP changes the polarization and amplitude of light incident on an interface according to Fresnel's equations including TIR. ASAP also adjusts the phase of the light according to the indices of refraction, optical path length, and aberration of the optical components. ASAP uses this information to compute power, intensity, irradiance (exitance), and radiance.
Don't bet on programs that cut corners for speed or leave out features to model the actual physics of optical systems. ASAP simulates real-world performance by taking into account the complete physics of optical systems. Armed with ASAP, optical engineers are able to efficiently design state-of-the-art lightpipes that perform as expected in the real word.
Reflectors/Luminaires
Reflectors transfer the optical output of sources to illumination systems, often for the purpose of creating images or uniform illumination patterns. Reflector design starts with a detailed source model, including the optical properties of the source and its geometry. The high complexity of real-world sources and iterative process of optimizing reflectors makes optical simulation software ideal for reflector/luminaire design.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
BRO's software products for reflector design include the ASAP optical engineering software package, the Exterior Lighting Test Module (ELTM) for testing of automotive illumination systems, and ReflectorCAD® Reflector Design Software, as well as an extensive library of source models for use with these applications.
Whether you are designing reflectors for imaging-illumination systems, fiber-optic lighting systems, segmented reflector headlamps powered by incandescent or HID arc sources, automotive taillights utilizing light-emitting diodes (LEDs), fog lighting, or interior auxiliary lights, there is no better tool for your illumination job. The high accuracy of ASAP ensures that your optical system will behave as predicted, avoiding costly redesigns and experimental prototyping.
Stray Light
Stray light is unwanted light. It is light that leads to poor system performance and possibly product, or mission, failure. Stray light obscures faint signals, decreases the signal-to-noise ratio, reduces contrast, creates inaccurate radiometric, and photometric results, and in high-energy laser systems destroys optical elements and detectors. Stray light is caused by a number of phenomena including light scattered from optical and mechanical surfaces, ghost reflections from transmissive optical elements like lenses, edge diffraction from stops and baffles, unwanted diffraction orders from gratings, and thermal emission.
Managing Stray Light
Stray light analysis determines not only how unwanted light gets to your detector but also how much stray light makes it to the detector of your optical system. Stray light analysis allows you to examine if stray light is a problem and how to fix it during the design phase of the project before building your optical system. This prevents costly redesigns and potentially fatal design mistakes before tooling hardware.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
ASAP optical analysis software was developed in-house at Breault Research to meet the unique challenges of stray light analysis. Accurate and fast stray light calculations cannot be done with simple brute-force Monte Carlo calculations. That is why ASAP uses directed scatter methods to send scattered light towards the areas of most interest.
What you can do with ASAP
- Identify stray light paths
- Calculate their absolute and relative contributions
- Determine if a system meets its requirements
- Make design enhancements that improve system performance
Key ASAP Features for Stray Light Analysis
- ASAP calculates stray light from scatter
- ASAP models scatter within three-dimensional geometries
- ASAP uses realistic BRDF models
- ASAP calculates stray light from ghosts
- ASAP does diffraction calculations
- ASAP calculates thermal irradiance
Why ASAP is used for the toughest Stray Light Analysis Projects
- To perform a first-order ghost analysis it is necessary for the software to track the paths of all of the ghosts. That is, a table of where the ghost reflections occur and how much power they contain is needed. ASAP has this capability.
- To identify critical and illuminate objects, which is the first step in any scattered stray light analysis, it is necessary that rays be collected on all objects, not just a set of predefined "receivers". It is also necessary that the power collected by each object be tracked and tabulated. ASAP does both of these.
- To perform an accurate quantitative analysis, it is necessary to have realistic BRDF models, not just Lambertian or "cosine to the nth" models. ASAP has 14 different classes of BRDF models, including the all-important Harvey model and the ability to fit or interpolate across measured data.
- To perform even a simple quantitative stray light analysis, it is necessary to be able to direct scattered rays towards areas of interest. ASAP can do this.
- Ghost's can sometimes be caused by total internal reflection (TIR) from lenses. ASAP can automatically switch from Fresnel reflections to TIR when the angle of incidence is high enough, and it properly calculates the flux of the ray as it does this.
- Many optical systems use diffraction gratings, and the unwanted orders can cause stray light problems. ASAP can split one ray into many different orders.
- It is often necessary to calculate beam footprints and arbitrary locations within a system to establish tolerances on apertures, baffles, housings, etc. ASAP can calculate such footprints anywhere within a system.
- Occasionally it is necessary to identify a specific stray light path and graphically trace it back through the system to find out exactly how it propagates. In ASAP, users can select any arbitrary ray, set of rays, or stray light paths and ask for a three-dimensional graphical ray trace of this path.
- ASAP is able to select subsets of rays based on stray light path, scatter order, flux, direction, position, etc. These subsets of rays can be used in irradiance or intensity calculations to identify the importance of a given class of stray light paths.
Pricing and Platform Information
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