About us
The Spectral Imaging Laboratory (SPILAB) was founded in 2002 as a private corporation to develop novel spectrometers and cameras. The principals are research scientists and engineers who pioneered the development of imaging spectrometers for planetary remote sensing. Their research began in 1985 at Rockwell’s Satellite and Space Electronics Division, birthplace of the Global Positioning Satellite system (GPS), and continued through the 1990s at Officine Galileo’s Space Optics Division, where the first Offner grating spectrometer was developed for the Cassini mission to Saturn. In 1996 the research expanded into spatially multiplexed Fourier transform infrared spectrometers and echelle grating spectrometers, with the worksites moving to CalTech and Oxford University. The echelle grating spectrometer was ultimately adopted by NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory for earth remote sensing, and the spatial interferometers have been used for laser induced emission and breakdown spectroscopy. In 2004 SPILAB began research into bio-inspired artificial compound eyes (ACE), which were new types of distortion free, wide-angle cameras with an infinite depth of field (no focus adjustment was required). Since then SPILAB has developed many varieties of ACE imaging systems. Some have multiple modes of imaging (color and polarization) and others have multiple focal lengths.
Our Facility
The Spectral Imaging Laboratory is located in a research development zone of Pasadena, California. The facility includes 4000 square feet of research grade optical, electronic, and chemical laboratory space plus a small machine shop. The laboratory space has anti-electrostatic floors, four large optical tables, a class 10 laminar flow clean bench, an externally vented fume hood, and all of the necessary illumination and measurement equipment to build and test imaging systems and spectrometers. The work environments meet all federal, state of California, and county of Los Angeles environmental laws.
Some of the test hardware include: a 0.2 – 20 μm imaging monochromator, an 8 inch uniform source sphere, several black body sources, a 4 inch aperture Fizeau interferometer, a 60 inch focal length off-axis imaging collimator, a pulsed 10.6 μm CO2 gas laser, a CW 10.6 μm solid state laser, a pulsed 1064 nm NdYag laser, a pulsed 1500 nm solid state eye-safe laser, various laser power meters, an assortment of visible, mid-wave IR, and long-wave IR cameras. A wide assortment of optical mounts and components can be bolted onto either a 4′ ×12′ or three 4′ × 8′ anti-vibration optical tables. The machine shop includes a vertical milling machine and a horizontal lathe for manufacturing of custom mounts. The laboratory has a number of workstations with access to the following application software: Zemax, Autodesk Inventor, Matlab, and LabView.