November 1, 2024
Space exploration comes with boundless fears and unknowns – malfunctions that could take lives or leave astronauts stranded in space. Who would guess that something as familiar as dust would cause dangerous risks such as overheating spacecraft? Well, that’s exactly what has happened. During several Apollo missions, deposits of lunar dust accumulated on the battery […]
October 25, 2024
Surface Optics Corporation (SOC), a leader in spectral imaging technology, announced it has secured a $1M Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract from the United States Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). The contract focuses on developing an early-warning multispectral EO/IR aerial platform to detect, identify, and track hypersonic missiles transitioning from glide […]
October 17, 2024
Since its launch in 2018, the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) ‘s Solar Consortium has emerged as a leading force in solar technology research. Situated at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), the consortium focuses on real-world challenges solar energy systems face in harsh desert environments. Dr. Veronica Bermudez, Senior Research Director of QEERI’s […]
October 6, 2024
Ginseng is a traditional medical herb used for more than 2,000 years to treat various conditions, including cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, promote immune and central nervous system (CNS) function, relieve stress, and for its antioxidant activities. Ginsenosides are considered the main bioactive components and essential indicators for the quality evaluation of ginseng. Among them, […]
September 26, 2024
The Surface Optics Coatings Lab had the privilege of contributing to a critical optical component of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, slated to launch by May 2027. Roman is an infrared telescope named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy. She is also known as the “Mother of Hubble” for her foundational […]
September 22, 2024
For over 45 years, Surface Optics has partnered with the world’s leading aerospace innovators, providing precise measurement instrumentation, comprehensive lab services, and specialized thin-film coatings. From optical property characterization in our state-of-the-art lab to portable reflectometers for on-site testing, Surface Optics offers effective products and services for validating thermal control parameters for spacecraft materials. Learn […]
September 11, 2024
What is BSDF? Light illuminating a surface may be reflected, transmitted or absorbed. The patterns of that interaction encode information about surface shape, material composition and structure. The quantitative representation of these patterns is the Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function (BSDF). BSDF radiometrically characterizes the scatter of optical radiation from and through a surface interface as a […]
August 1, 2024
As we push the envelope to devise creative solutions to global problems, researchers have concentrated their efforts on the emerging field of metasurfaces. A metasurface is an engineered two-dimensional material designed to manipulate electromagnetic waves, such as light, in ways that are not possible with natural materials. These surfaces consist of arrays of subwavelength structures, […]
July 11, 2024
Building designers and developers that are pursuing the Heat island reduction credit for LEED certification require documentation of the Solar Reflectance Index (SRI) for their project’s roofing materials, shade giving structures, and paving materials. Under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED 2009 rating system, credits SSc7.1 and SSc7.2 (combined as credit SSc5 in LEED v4) […]
July 9, 2024
Crop monitoring for nutrients, water-stress, disease, insect attack and overall plant health is a vital aspect of successful agricultural operations. Traditionally this has been carried out by visual examination of crops on the ground or sometimes from the air. However these methods are limited by the ability of the human eye to discriminate between healthy […]