Abstract: Embodiments include a control apparatus, a control method, and a control system that can effectively utilize an index regarding light incident on a measured object by obtaining the index effective for the measured object. The control apparatus can effectively utilize an effective index by controlling improvement of an environment that affects calculation of the effective index on the basis of the effective index representing an index that is related to light incident on a measured object and that is effectively utilized for the measured object. The measured object may be a plant.

Abstract: Technologies are generally described for systems and methods for detecting chiral properties of materials and separating materials based on their chiral properties. A chiral vector is constructed from anisotropy properties of a polarization-dependent output signal from a sample. Different types of molecules from the sample can be differentiated based on a magnitude of the chiral vector. Chiral properties of the sample can be detected based on an angle of the chiral vector. The output signal can be a fluorescent emission from the sample and can be used to detect chiral properties of a substantially opaque sample.

Abstract: A surface plasmon resonance instrument and measuring method, in which a lens collimates light into a light beam, a prism propagates the collimated light beam at a single propagation angle and with internal reflection on a face of the prism, and an analyzer processes the collimated light beam from the prism. The face of the prism is configured to receive a surface plasmon resonance sensor and at least the first lens and the prism are aligned on a single optical axis.

Abstract: A spectral measurement device includes: an optical band-pass filter section that has first to n-th wavelengths (n is an integer of 2 or more) having a predetermined wavelength width as a spectral band thereof; a correction operation section that corrects a reception signal based on an output optical signal from the optical band-pass filter section; and a signal processing section that executes predetermined signal processing based on the reception signal corrected by the correction operation section that corrects the reception signal based on the change in the spectral distribution of the reception signal.

Abstract: Combined spectral and polarimetry imaging and diagnostic techniques are disclosed, including an imaging system that simultaneously records spatially co-registered spectral and polarization information from an image of a target scene such as an ocular structure or material or device in an around the eye. Image acquisition and image calibration by such an imaging system or an imaging spectrometer or polarimeter are also disclosed. Methods of data storage and image display relevant to medical practice in general and ophthalmology practice specifically are further disclosed.

Abstract: Technologies are generally described for systems and methods for detecting chiral properties of materials and separating materials based on their chiral properties. A chiral vector is constructed from anisotropy properties of a polarization-dependent output signal from a sample. Different types of molecules from the sample can be differentiated based on a magnitude of the chiral vector. Chiral properties of the sample can be detected based on an angle of the chiral vector. The output signal can be a fluorescent emission from the sample and can be used to detect chiral properties of a substantially opaque sample.

Abstract: A system, apparatus, and method of generating Stokes vectors, a Mueller matrix, and polarized scattering from an aerosol aggregate includes providing an incident infrared laser beam; causing the incident infrared laser beam to be polarization-modulated using variable stress/strain birefringence imposed on a ZnSe crystal; defining a Stokes vector associated with the incident infrared laser beam; scattering the incident infrared laser beam from an aggregate aerosol comprising interferents and analyte particles; producing a scattered-beam reactant Stokes vector by causing the scattered incident infrared laser beam to be polarization-modulated; generating a Mueller matrix by taking a transformation of the Stokes vector; and identifying the analyte using the Mueller matrix. The Mueller matrix may comprise M-elements that are functions of a wavelength of the infrared laser beam, backsattering orientation of the infrared laser beam, and a shape and size of the interferents and analyte particles.

Abstract: A method for characterizing an electric signal (10), includes the propagation of a first light beam (18) through an electro-optical medium (17) in a first propagation direction, wherein at least one optical property of the medium changes when it is submitted to an electrical field, and the propagation of a second light beam (19) through the electro-optical medium in a second propagation direction different from the first direction. For each light beam, a measurement of a variation in an optical property of the light beam (18; 19) due to the propagation of the beam in the medium (17) is used for determining the propagation direction (20) of an electric signal (10) submitting the medium to an electrical field. A device for implementing the method, and an electro-optical probe implemented in the device are also disclosed. Applicability: electro-optical sampling of a component, characterization of electric pulses in guided structures.

Abstract: A target substance-detecting apparatus for detecting a target substance in an analyte comprises a detecting device having a substrate and metal structures capable of causing a plasmon resonance arranged thereon, an illumination optical system for illuminating an incident light containing a polarization component polarized in a first direction onto the detecting device to cross the arranged metal structures, a light-receiving device for receiving light containing the polarization component polarized in the first direction and transmitted through or reflected by the detecting device, and an arithmetic unit for calculating on signals from the light-receiving device to analyze a characteristic of the analyte; the metal structures arranged at first intervals not more than 1/10 of a plasmon resonance wavelength in lines in the first direction and at second intervals not less than ¼ of the plasmon resonance wavelength and not more than the wavelength in lines parallel in a second direction.

Abstract: A method for manufacturing an optical element in which a display quality of a projection image is improved is provided. The method is for manufacturing an optical element having a polarization plate of which one side a transmissive member is bonded. The method includes preparing a light source, a polarization plate, a transmissive member, a certificating polarization plate and a spectrophotometer; arranging the polarization plate, the transmissive member, and the certificating polarization plate between the light source and the spectrophotometer; measuring a light transmittance spectrum of a predetermined wavelength at each rotational position of the transmissive member; determining the rotational position of the transmissive member that yields a smallest value for a difference between a maximum value and a minim value of the light transmittance spectrum; and bonding the transmissive member to the polarization plate at the determined rotational position.

Abstract: An apparatus for separating fluorescent light from light elastically scattered/reflected from a material illuminated with a broadband illumination source includes a polarization discriminator, which separates the substantially polarized elastically scattered/reflected light from the unpolarized fluorescent light, and a spectrometer to analyze the full and separated reflectance spectra. A linear polarizer may be provided to polarize the illumination source. A method for separating fluorescence light induced in a material by broadband light from an elastic scattering/reflection component includes providing polarization discrimination to separate the components, the fluorescence light being substantially unpolarized, and spectrally analyzing the reflectance components. The method may include linearly polarizing the light source. A fluorescence spectra may be extracted from a minimum reflectance spectra or from a residual polarization reflectance spectra.

Abstract: An apparatus for ascertaining properties of a light beam, comprises a means for splitting a measured beam out from the light beam and comprises at least one detector that at least partially receives the measured beam. A polarization-influencing means is arranged in the beam path of the measured beam in order to enhance reliability and reproducibility.

Abstract: The present invention relates to alkylglycoside-containing compositions and methods for increasing the stability, reducing the aggregation and immunogenicity, increasing the biological activity, and reducing or preventing fibrillar formation of a peptide, polypeptide, or variant thereof, for example insulin and Peptide T or analog thereof.

Abstract: The invention concerns arrays comprising hundreds, thousands, to hundreds of thousands of samples and methods for screening thereof. These methods are useful to optimize, select, and discover compounds, compositions, or conditions that prevent, inhibit, induce, modify, or reverse physical-state transitions, particularly in-vivo physical-state transitions relating to disease causing processes. Such compounds, compositions, or conditions can be exploited to treat (e.g., reverse) or prevent the disease itself, the cause of the disease, or the symptoms of the disease.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for assay of multiple analytes. The method uses a sensing element comprising a substrate upon which is arranged a multiplicity of recognition elements, such that each element is laid out in a predetermined pattern. Each pattern is unique in that it can give rise to a characteristic diffraction pattern in the assay. The patterns may or may not be interpenetrating on the substrate surface. The method of detecting multiple analytes includes contacting the medium of analytes with the patterned substrate, illuminating the substrate by a light source, and detecting any resultant diffraction image. The pattern of diffraction and the intensity of the diffracted signal provides information about the existence of specific analytes and their quantification.

Abstract: An illumination subsystem for use in optical analysis which provides spatially and angularly homogenized radiation to the sample being analyzed. The system eliminates the illumination system as an interferent in the overall optical analysis. Thus, modest translations or rotations of the illumination source or changing the illumination source does not require recalibration of the instrument or prior modeling of illumination variability due to such changes. Illumination stability is achieved by incorporating a light pipe which both angularly and spatially homogenizes the light. Further, a series of filters and/or lenses are incorporated to provide bandpass filtering which eliminates unwanted wavelengths or bands of wavelengths from contacting the tissue and allows for a higher signal-to-noise ratio when the sample is tissue, while preventing thermal damage.

Abstract: A spectrophotometer and spectrophotometry method, using a precision drive at a photodiode array which precisely moves the photodiode array by a distance equal to the physical interval between the photodiodes of the photodiode array so that the spectrophotometer and spectrophotometry method primarily measures light intensities of incident light by the photodiode array, and when precisely moves the photodiode array using the drive by the distance equal to the physical interval between photodiodes of the photodiode array, measures the light intensities of the incident light at desired positions corresponding to the intervals.

Abstract: The present invention provides methods for measuring a photosynthetic parameter. The methods of the invention include the steps of: (a) illuminating a plant leaf until steady-state photosynthesis is achieved; (b) subjecting the illuminated plant leaf to a period of darkness; (c) using a kinetic spectrophotometer or kinetic spectrophotometer/fluorimeter to collect spectral data from the plant leaf treated in accordance with steps (a) and (b); and (d) determining a photosynthetic parameter from the spectral data. In another aspect, the invention provides methods for determining the physiological state of a plant.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for detecting analytes in a medium, and more particularly the present invention relates to an assay based on light diffraction which appears or changes upon the binding of analytes to their specific receptors laid out in patterns on a substrate, which has high sensitivity due to the appropriate choice of such patterns. The present invention is based on the principle that the pattern of recognition elements, which gives rise to the diffraction of the incident light in a diffraction-based assay, can be chosen in such a way so as to facilitate detection, and to enhance the signal to be detected compared to known gratings such as parallel straight lines. In one aspect the substrate itself has a surface topography designed to enhance the diffraction pattern signals. In another aspect the substrate is a diffractive optic element having the analyte-specific receptors affixed to the optic element.

Abstract: A lamp assembly for use in the printing and coating industries has an elongate source of radiation and a reflector with an elongate reflective surface partly surrounding the source for reflecting radiation from the source down onto a substrate for curing a coating thereon. A shutter system is provided for shuttering the source to prevent radiation from reaching the substrate. The condition of the lamp assembly is monitored by shuttering the source and measuring the level of reflected radiation exiting through an aperture in the reflector.

Abstract: A device and a method enable the rapid, quantitative evaluation of a large collection of ligands for binding affinity with a certain immobilized receptor, the improvements being that binding pan be detected without the need for a label and that binding is carried out in solution phase at a high rate. The instrument has at least two embodiments, one is based on a sensitive absorption photometer and the other on a sensitive light scatter photometer operating at a specific resonance wavelength, &lgr;R, of small, metallic, colloidal particles. The resonance is present in small particles having a complex refractive index with real part n(&lgr;) approaching 0 and imaginary part k(&lgr;) approaching 2 simultaneously at a specific wavelength &lgr;R. The particles are substantially spherical and substantially smaller than &lgr;R. The receptor is immobilized on a suspension of such particles and ligand binding is detected by a change in optical absorption or light scatter at the resonance wavelength.

Abstract: A lamp assembly for use in the printing and coating industries has an elongate source of radiation and a reflector with an elongate reflective surface partly surrounding the source for reflecting radiation from the source down onto a substrate for curing a coating thereon. A shutter system is provided for shuttering the source to prevent radiation from reaching the substrate. The condition of the lamp assembly is monitored by shuttering the source and measuring the level of reflected radiation exiting through an aperture in the reflector.

Abstract: The invention concerns a micropolarimeter comprising an analyzer (1) and a detector (10) located past the analyzer in the direction of radiation and presenting a number of segments ND which is higher than or equal to 3 (11). The invention seeks to provide a micropolarimeter with no moving parts, with a high polarization index, for use for polychromatic light, so small that it can detect the ray of common lasers in one single measurement step without it being necessary to enlarge it, and capable of being converted in a simple manner into a complete Stokesmeter.

Abstract: A method of fabricating a semiconductor device includes the steps of illuminating a structure formed on a surface of a substrate by an incident optical beam incident to the structure with a predetermined incident angle with respect to the surface, measuring a polarization state of an exiting optical beam exiting from the structure in response to an illumination of the structure by the incident optical beam, and evaluating a size of the structure in a direction parallel to the surface from the polarization state of the exiting optical beam, and adjusting a parameter of production of a semiconductor device in response to the size.

Abstract: A nephelometer and nephelometer/turbidimeter combination of the type useful in automated chemical analyzers is provided. The combination includes a laser for generating a polarized laser beam having an S-wave component and a P-wave component. The beam is split by a beam splitter specially constructed so that a known proportion of one of the two polarized portions of the beam is directed to a reaction container. In the reaction container, a first polarized component of the laser beam is used in a nephelometric chemical analysis. The remainder of the laser beam passes through the beam splitter to a laser control light detector. Before the remainder of the laser beam reaches the laser control light detector, however, the polarized component which is not used in nephelometric chemical analysis is filtered out. The laser control detector uses the non-filtered portion of the laser beam to control the output of the laser.

Abstract: The invention is a method and apparatus for quantitatively characterizing the pressure-induced nonreciprocity of a fiber-optic coil where the pressure-induced nonreciprocity is a property of a fiber-optic coil which pertains to the degree to which light beams, initially in phase, differ in phase as a result of traversing the fiber-optic coil in reverse directions while the fiber-optic coil is being subjected to a time-varying pressure. The method comprises the steps of applying time-varying pressure to the fiber-optic coil for a predetermined time period, measuring the phase difference of light beams traversing the fiber-optic coil in reverse directions during the predetermined time period, and obtaining a measure of the nonreciprocity of the fiber-optic coil utilizing the measured phase difference.

Abstract: Characteristic values of transparent layers in the nanometer range, such a layer thickness and refractive index, can be determined with a spectro-ellipsometer. The task is to determine these values even with a less elaborate ellipsometer which only operates at one or a few wavelengths. In accordance with the invention, first at least one pair of the ellipsometric angles psi and delta are measured with at least one angle of incidence of the light beams on the sample for at least one ellipsometer wavelength, from which at least one characteristic value is determined for one ellipsometer period. Furthermore, the wavelength-dependent reflection of the probe in the wavelength range of interest is photometrically measured and from this the spectral dependency of the characteristic value is determined with the ellipsometrically measured characteristic value.

Abstract: The invention concerns a method of determining the angle of attack (pretilt angle) of liquid crystal molecules in a liquid crystal display (LCD) provided with top and bottom cover plates. The following steps are proposed for a simple and cheap determination: addition of a dichroic dye (17) to the liquid crystal (5) in order to cause the dye molecules (18) to become aligned by the crystal molecules (6), which are present in a twist-free state, determination by measurement of a maximum absorption value, the said measurement being carried out by causing a polarized ray of light (19) (measuring ray) to pass through the liquid crystal display (1) and varying its angle of inclination (.alpha.) with respect to the plane of the cover plates (2,3), and then using the angle of inclination (.alpha.) associated with the maximum absorption for determining the angle of attack (.delta.).