spectrum
spectrum
Hyperspectral Technologies
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Technologies

Compact Hyperspectral A
Compact Hyperspectral Advanced Imager

 

Offner and Dyson Imaging Spectrometers

Brandywine’s product cores are Offner and Dyson imaging spectrographs. We build our spectrographs to exacting image quality, distortion, throughput, and stray light specifications for use in many science applications. Our spectrographs, when mated to our image sensors, create an imaging spectrometer robust enough for the most demanding airborne applications.

Diffraction Grating Fabrication

Brandywine custom designs and fabricates blazed diffraction gratings specifically for its spectrometers, whether convex or concave. These diffraction gratings have very precision placement of their grooves (<25 nm) for sharp spectral performance. The surface roughness of <20 angstrom permits operation in the ultraviolet, while the figure of <¼-wave allows for excellent imaging. Sizes go up to 100 mm in diameter and 125 grooves/mm. Special care is taken for long-term coating performance, in particular, extended-UV silver with reflectivity of >98% across the UV-VNIR region.

VNIR and SWIR  Image Sensors

Brandywine Photonics is currently building the next generation of CMOS image sensors for hyperspectral imaging. These image sensors use proprietary methods to eliminate many of the problems of CCD’s when used for science applications. This device eliminates problems such as frame transfer smear correction and fringing often found when CCD’s are used for hyperspectral imaging. The primary difference to current CMOS imagers is our higher quantum efficiency, with a projected QE of 80% from 400-900 nm, and 40% at 380-nm. Other advantages of our CMOS image sensor are an effective 40000:1 dynamic range and frame rate of >300 Hz. Please contact us for custom well depths, spectral range, and gain options.

Lens Design
Lens Design

 

Wide-field-of-View Telescopes

When building a broadband hyperspectral system, it is critical to reduce chromatic aberrations which can cause low transmission or loss of image quality. For systems which extend below 420 nm in the blue, or cover from 380-2500 nm (VIS-SWIR), we offer all-reflective telescopes. These telescopes range from 33 mm focal lengths (50 degree FOV) to 1000 mm or greater. These telescopes can either be diamond turned or CNC polished low-expansion materials, depending on the instrument’s thermal requirements.

Optical Instrument Integration

Brandywine Photonics has designed hyperspectral  instruments for many hard flight environments including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, the International Space Station, and tactical ball turrets. This has required full thermal and structural analysis and testing. Each instrument for spaceflight goes through full shock and vibration at the subsystem level prior to spacecraft integration and test. Coatings are also tested at the thin film manufacturer for thermal, humidity, abrasion, and adhesion using standard Mil-Spec tests.

Real-time Processing using GP-GPU and FPGAs

Brandywine Photonics is working with the latest GP-GPU multi-core processing and FPA developers for high performance computing in both Earth Science and tactical applications.