OptoFlash™ Optical Engines

Newport's OptoFlash™ optical engines incorporate our high-performance Stabilife^® optical filters and a high-sensitivity Si photodiode in a miniature package to provide high performance wavelength demultiplexing and detection in a single, plug-in component. These devices were originally developed as a solution for OEM analytical instrument manufacturers seeking to reduce the size of their instruments and simplify the optical detection system. For filter-wheel based instruments, the novel design of OptoFlash enables the elimination of many components in traditional filter-wheel based instruments by packaging bandpass filters, beam-steering optics, and detector in a single element. For grating-based instruments, OptoFlash provides similar demultiplexing functionality as grating-based spectrometers. In these applications, the excellent temperature stability provided by OptoFlash enables the elimination of special cooling components that are required for some grating-based spectrometers.
OptoFlash engines are custom-configured to meet the needs of OEM applications. As many as 10 discrete wavelength channels, chosen from a set of 46 standard wavelength options, can be installed in the basic package. Custom wavelengths can also be manufactured for applications that can not be accommodated from the set of standard wavelengths. Custom devices with more than 10 channels have also been developed for unique applications requiring a larger data set. In addition to the custom-configuration capability provided by our design-architecture, we have developed 16 standard configurations for clinical chemistry applications corresponding to the most commonly used wavelength data sets deployed in clinical analyzers.
These devices allow optical transmission at each wavelength within the device to be simultaneously detected with negligible channel-to-channel crosstalk. They can be operated in two distinct modes. With optimized electronic designs, measurement speeds can range from 33ms with linearity ≥OD3.5, to 23ms with reverse bias and linearity ≥OD2.5.

Low Noise Mode (no bias)

• Detector Dark Current: < 10 pA @ 0 volt bias
• Detector Rise Time: < 1.2 µsec. @ 0 volt bias
• Typical full-device measured linearity: 340 nm ≈ OD 4; all other channels ≈ OD 4.5
• Typical measured stray light (channel-to-channel crosstalk): ≥ OD 3.5 and ≥ OD 5 average

High Speed Mode (with bias)

• Designed for high-speed clinical chemistry analyzers.
• Detector Dark Current: < 50 pA @ 10 volt bias
• Detector Rise Time: < 0.3 µsec. @ 10 volt bias

Standard Wavelength Options (nm)

Common Specifications

Standard OptoFlash Device Configurations