Company: Beam Engineering Company
City: Winter Park
Country: USA
url: http://www.beamco.com
Beam Engineering for Advanced Measurement Corporation (BeamCo) was founded by leading scientists recognized the world over as pioneers in nonlinear optics of liquid crystals. More than 20 years of fundamental research, generously funded by governmental and advanced technology agencies in many countries, revealed the potential of nonlinear optics of liquid crystals for triggering unique applications and opportunities in laser and photonics technologies.
The basis of BeamCo's liquid crystal technologies is the phenomenon, predicted and discovered by the officers of the company, that liquid crystals can be reoriented by the electric field of light beams. The discovery of this phenomenon opened up a wealth of new opportunities. Like the phenomenon of reorientation of liquid crystals by electric fields led to a revolution in display technology, BeamCo has provided solid evidence that the phenomenon of reorientation of liquid crystals by light fields will lead to revolutionary advances in photonics (including all-optical communication).
BeamCo was jump-started by the Small Business Innovative Research program (SBIR) of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in 1996 for the development of technology aimed at replacing the "medieval" techniques (based on knife edges, rotating drums, etc.) presently used for laser beam measurement and characterization. BeamCo's Beam-meters use transparent, thin layers of liquid crystals for direct measurement of absolute power density (W/cm2) and beam quality of focused laser beams. In addition to unique operational features, the price range for complete characterization of the laser beam profile in the focus (where it matters!) will be reduced by an order of magnitude. Inexpensive CCD cameras, readily available for visible radiation, are being transformed by BeamCo into broad band (visible to far infrared) laser beam imaging devices with the aid of the optical nonlinearity of liquid crystals.
