Categories: Spatial Light Modulator ResourcesVideo

Video: Meadowlark Spatial Light Modulators at Quantum 2.0 2023

By Jose Poso, Chief Technology Officer at Optica. Originally posted at https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7087829575413428224/

MEADOWLARK OPTICS: WORLD’S FASTEST SPATIAL LIGHT MODULATORS FOR QUANTUM. Today it’s time to catch up with an awesome encounter I had recently with Tyler Walls, one of the engineering experts at Optica Corporate member Meadowlark Optics. He attended the Optica Quantum 2.0 gathering in Denver and I dropped by their booth to find out what a Polarisation Optics pioneer was doing at a Quantum Photonics conference. Also, what did he take away from the end-user workshop we organised with the help of Boeing, and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory?

(Reminder: If you’re interested in quantum developments, then continue the conversation on November 14-15 2023 in Lausanne, Switzerland at the second Optica Quantum Industry Summit. On behalf of my Optica Corporate Engagement colleagues, Helena Diez-y-Riega, Olga Raz and Pouya Dianat, PhD, we look forward to seeing you there! Details here: https://lnkd.in/ecRwDDJc)

Early years: How Meadowlark Optics started

In 1979 Tom Baur, a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, started Meadowlark Optics as an after-hours venture in a spare bedroom of his home in Longmont, Colorado. He was leading a project to measure the magnetic fields in sunspots. Baur needed an optical device called Pockels cells, which he designed for his work, and to meet the demands of other astronomers. Based on the success of that one device, Tom began to design and make other products. When operations outgrew the spare room, he remodelled his barn, replacing the hayloft with offices and workrooms. Then it was time to move.

While still calling the small town of Frederick home, Meadowlark Optics has been creating world-class polarization optics from a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility since 1998. To ensure precision and top quality, their 20,000-square-foot headquarters boasts the latest in clean rooms, optical fabrication, metrology facilities, plus a breathtaking view of #Colorado’s Front Range Mountains.

In 2023, Meadowlark products customers worldwide to pioneer their own innovations. These include advances in liquid crystals with one-of-a-kind polarization controllers and the Liquid Crystal Stokes Polarimeter. Likewise, their metrology services measure waveplates to subnanometer precision. One-thousandth of a wave of retardance is their standard accuracy.