LiDAR technology uses focused light beams to generate a representation of the environment. LiDAR calculates distances with great accuracy and finds applications ranging from aerial inspection and crop mapping to autonomous vehicles. Startups are innovating to bring together the latest developments in LiDAR in a single chip to make the technology more affordable.
Silicon Photonics
Silicon photonics use silicon as an optical medium and need less energy to transmit data faster compared to other communication technologies. Since silicon photonics use optical rays for data transfer, they commonly find applications in solutions that have both optical and computational functions.
Fiber Optic Sensor
Optical interrogators use fibers to monitor industrial assets via a network of sensors in real-time. However, optical fibers are prohibitively expensive and hard to maintain, limiting their use to high-end applications or extremely crucial operations. As integrated photonics-based solutions lower the cost of interrogators, they are expanding the scope of fiber optic sensors to new markets.
Photonic Microsensors
Medical diagnostics startups usually use light-based solutions such as spectroscopy, microscopy, or visual inspection to generate their results. By combining light detection with signal processing in a single device, integrated photonics-based solutions enable rapid and highly sensitive detection of biomolecules. Moreover, the benefits of photonic microsensors include miniaturization, amenability to multiplexing, and low-cost mass production.
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