FEATURE SPECTROSCOPY
that gap. Every so often though, we see that it’s not easy for our end customer to bridge that gap. They have deep expertise in their own field, but they don’t have access to teams to build a model for their application.” Spectroscopy firms all react differently to
Hamamatsu Photonics says its L16462-01 diffuse reflection light source improves signal-to-noise ratio in spectrometers working in near-IR wavelengths
gmanufacturing processes – to deliver spectrometers with improved sensitivity,
resolution, accuracy, and, importantly, higher unit-to-unit reproducibility. One such spectrometer is Avantes’ new
AvaSpec Pacto, which Shafiee introduced as a “next-generation photonic backbone spectrometer designed to empower a wide range of applications in various industries”. Shafiee said the system is compact, lightweight and powerful and “offers high- speed performance with integration times of up to nine microseconds, minimal stray light as low as 0.1%, and a strong signal- to-noise ratio of 375:1. We also offer various communication protocols for it. Pacto can be optimised using six different slit sizes, more than 15 types of grating, and all of these features essentially make it a highly suitable spectrometer for OEM and non-OEM applications.” She added that the Pacto also offers
the option to choose from different communication protocols, further enhancing its versatility, and that it is also compatible with Avantes’ light sources and software, allowing integration with other products or systems.
Closing the expertise gap A particular challenge often faced by spectroscopy firms, according to Shafiee, arises in applications of increased specialisation, where niche areas of deep expertise are often created by experts in that particular field. While this of course benefits the field, it can create gaps in knowledge that then need to be filled when serving such specialised applications using spectroscopy. “For example, in some of the medical applications where spectroscopy can be enormously helpful, either us (the spectrometer expert), or the end user (doctors or medical professionals) need to close that gap,” said Shafiee. “It’s typically the latter that happens. Our expert customers, with a need in their mind, come and learn more about how they can close
16 Electro Optics May 2023
this challenge, she continued. “Some take it upon themselves to build the application, however we at Avantes don’t choose to do that. This is because, in a sense, we would end up competing with some of our customers. And we want our customers to feel safe when they’re discussing technical details and so that they know that their IP is well protected with us. The way we go around that challenge is we work with other partners, who then work directly with our end customers and support them with their application development if need be.”
Spectroscopy for precision agriculture Gaetano Panagia, Technical Marketing Engineer at Hamamatsu Photonics Europe, shared his views on how miniaturised spectroscopy could impact the future of food and agriculture. He began by highlighting one of the
key challenges humanity could face in the future. “In 2021, it was estimated
‘Foods such as milk, honey, olive oil and wine are increasingly being tampered with… spectroscopy can detect these adulterations’
that 11% of the world population was undernourished,” he said. “The situation won’t seem to get any better when we look at the forecast for population increase – which is expected to rise by 40% between today and the year 2100, reaching up to 11bn people. This could pose a serious threat to our food supply.” He explained that one of the proposed solutions to this challenge is ‘precision agriculture’, which as a term covers several different topics. “One of these is the selection and bio-engineering of seeds that allow us to produce better-quality crops at higher yields and with more resistance towards parasites and climate change. Another is the application of robotics and automation technology to optimise growth and harvesting of our crops.” Miniaturised spectroscopy could play
a number of different roles in facilitating precision agriculture, Panagia explained. “Firstly, it can be used to assess soil quality and optimise irrigation, thus sparing water. Similarly, it can be used to optimise the quality of fertiliser that we apply to soil.
This not only helps reduce costs, but also reduces the pollution that can be caused by fertilisation. It can also be used on automated harvesting systems, helping determine when is the best time to harvest a specific crop.” Following harvesting, miniaturised
spectroscopy could also play an important role in helping people select foods according to their chemical and physical properties, as well as detecting adulteration in food. “High-value foods such as milk, honey, olive oil and wine are increasingly getting tampered with lower quality substances,” said Panagia. “Spectroscopy can detect these adulterations and help improve not only the food quality of foods, but also our health.”
Rapid adoption of portable systems With regards to the market of spectroscopy in precision agriculture, Panagia highlighted that benchtop spectrometers currently represent a larger portion of the market and are set to increase from €233.3m in 2022 to €342.8m in 2027 (a CAGR of 8%). Portable instruments will increase from €47.2m to €112.6m over the same time period (a CAGR of 19%). The main reason for the difference in market size between the two spectrometer types, Panagia noted, is that handheld systems are in general much cheaper than their benchtop counterparts. He attributed the rapid growth of
portable instruments to the wide range of new capabilities offered by portable spectroscopy. “Traditionally, if a customer wanted to analyse some soil, for example, they would have to get a sample, send it to a lab, and then await the analysis and results. This whole process would take days, sometimes even weeks. Nowadays the spectrometers are shrinking in size, which means we can integrate them into large machinery like tractors and sorting machinery. They are even getting all the way down to the size of a fingertip, enabling them to also be integrated into mobile devices. Having these portable systems
The AvaSpec Pacto is Avantes’ latest compact, lightweight and powerful spectrometer, designed for easy integration across a wide range of industries and applications
@electrooptics |
www.electrooptics.com
Hamamatsu Photonics
Avantes
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