Challenge, solution, technology, result

Challenge. A materials group needed to tell three recycled polymer grades apart on the line, not in the lab. Sample presentation varied and the operators were not spectroscopists.

Solution. We specified NIR rather than Raman after seeing the samples: fluorescence from the additives would have buried the Raman signal. A handheld InGaAs spectrometer with a reflectance probe and a fixed stand-off jig gave a reading in under two seconds.

Challenge. A teaching interferometer had drifted out of alignment for years and no one trusted the diode source that had replaced the original laser.

Solution. A polarised helium-neon head restored a known, stable reference wavelength. We supplied the head, the supply with interlock terminals, and the mounts to put it back on the existing rail without redrilling.

Challenge. A machine builder needed the beam split to two heads with a fixed power ratio, inside an enclosure that was already designed and could not grow.

Solution. A polarising beamsplitter cube with a half-wave plate ahead of it gave a continuously adjustable split without swapping optics. Everything mounted on a 30 mm cage bench so the whole assembly could be aligned on the bench and dropped in.

Challenge. A reflector design was close, but stray light was washing out the cut-off and a tooling commitment was two weeks away.

Solution. We put the existing CAD through a raytrace, found the stray path coming off an unpainted flange, and iterated the reflector geometry in the optimiser rather than in aluminium.

Describe the measurement and the constraint. We will tell you what it needs and what it costs.