by Dr. Robert L. Stevenson
Optical spectrometry is well into a new rapid innovation phase powered by advances in understanding the physics of light combined with elegant engineering leading to useful products. Light is being sculpted by advances in lasers and photonics chips that can couple electronics and optics on a small solid-state device. The demand side is driven by life science research fueled by an insatiable demand for disease and drug discovery for improving health, plus opportunities for novel nanomaterials.
The products are much more than legacy spectrometers such as UV-VIS, IR, and Raman, most of which use refraction, gratings or filters to select and measure intensity of electromagnetic radiation. Physicists are having success with showing that light is more complex than simple frequency and polarization. Light has angular momentum, which must not be destroyed. In the quantum world, there is spin. Photons can interact or entangle with other photons and matter to produce polaritons and other quantum constructs promising new synthetic routes for molecules and efficient renewable energy.
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