Open-source measurement helps photonics companies scale

The photonics industry is experiencing an era of explosive growth, driven by shifting market demands (and geopolitical events) as well as huge leaps in technological capabilities. Competition is fierce to capitalize on this growth, and photonics companies are being pushed to develop products at an ultralow cost with higher-than-ever performance. To achieve a competitive advantage, executives can leverage measurement and fast feedback loop systems—open-source hardware and software.

Photonics companies should embrace open-source tools for their measurements. Companies already using this technology have a much easier time scaling, which is a constant challenge.

Why use measurement and control systems?

Photonics companies excel at building optical systems using lenses, mirrors, prisms, lasers, modulators, and photodetectors. Precise measurement and control devices for their products and the experiments they enable—such as DAQ cards, oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, and fast feedback controllers (PID controllers, lock-in amplifiers, and network analyzers)—are equally critical.

While it’s completely achievable to build these measurement devices and systems inhouse at a reasonable cost, there is a perception that it’s too expensive to do so. This misconception persists, despite other avenues for achieving high precision being costly as well—especially if it requires integrating proprietary systems or licensing someone else’s patent.

Regardless, photonics companies continue to search for ready-made measurement solutions. These options, like those offered by Zurich Instruments and Liquid Instruments, are known to be reliable. But their integration can increase production costs and isn’t a convenient solution for integration. It’s bulky, expensive, and not flexible—which isn’t feasible, particularly for startups.

Why should photonics companies build measurement in-house?

Building in-house custom electronics is the answer to better measurement, because it will be optimally designed in size, cost, and application. But this type of build requires significant time and investment—not least the need to hire specialized radio frequency (RF) engineering experts. For many photonics companies, these costs are prohibitive. Using development boards like FPGA boards and FMC ADC/DAC modules works well for prototyping and is a more efficient and cost-effective approach to measurement vs. a custom electronic build. But once out of the prototyping stage, these development boards can be challenging to deploy at scale due to their complexity and cost.

Photonics companies are left with difficult choices: Should you use ready-made solutions that contribute to inflexibility and bulk in end-products? Or should you invest in custom electronics that may take years to pay back in terms of time and financial resources? Or prototype with development boards that may not scale to production levels?

Another option that companies like LongPath and its laser-based sensing nodes already rely on is open-source hardware and software (for single-board computers) to quickly, easily, and inexpensively build precise measurement devices they can integrate well into their photonics product.

Open-source, single-board computers are ideal for photonics

Single-board computers are powerful, compact circuit boards complete with microprocessors, memory, input/output components, Wi-Fi/Ethernet connectivity, and other features to allow it to operate like a functional computer. These boards are embedded into millions of products—although engineers likely first encountered them during their university studies—and you may recognize the companies Red Pitaya (I’m its CTO) and Raspberry Pi.

Not all single-board computers are built alike, and for laser and photonics applications engineers should choose ones with open-source drivers, which use specialized FPGA processors as well as CPU processors to offer both analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion. It’s also important that it’s compatible with other programs being used in your company, such as C, LabVIEW, MATLAB, Python, or Scilab.

A single-board computer with these features is well suited for operations like laser frequency stabilization and scanning probe microscopy. It also brings two major advantages to photonics companies: Ease of development and reliability of cost and supply.

An open-source, single-board computer is an ideal component for both hardware and software R&D. The board itself is compact and easy to integrate into end-products—without adding bulk or other hardware complexities. It runs on open-source software, which makes it easy for in-house software engineers to develop customized programs. Being open-source means bugs are resolved rapidly, and new features are only launched after extensive community feedback. Plenty of resources are available for in-house developers, including forums, documentation, tutorials, and even prebuilt components. This helps photonics companies develop truly customized measurement systems for their products. It’s the opposite of program “lock-in” required by ready-made photonics measurement devices.

Aside from ease of development, using these boards can future-proof a photonics product. As a component, they are far cheaper and mass-produced with regularity, which means supply chain disruptions are rarely a concern. Companies that use them can also boost their sustainability credentials because multifunctional, open-source hardware can be updated and reused instead of wasted.

The combination of these advantages means photonics companies can easily and inexpensively build custom systems at every stage of development. And by cutting costs and reliance on external providers, companies can accelerate their prototyping significantly and shift development cycles from years to months.

Open-source tech gives photonics companies an edge

Using open-source technology is not the only way a photonics company or startup can gain a competitive advantage. Indeed, a company with strong partnerships with measurement device vendors or an exceedingly well-funded startup may not see the need for open-source, single-board computers in their product stack.

But the benefits of using inexpensive, easy-to-access, multipurpose, flexible, open-source technology tend to compound, especially as a market matures. For this reason, photonics companies should explore this small but powerful tool as a key to successful, consistent scaling.