The main focus of the Photonics program is the development of state-of-the-art optoelectronics components and their optimal integration into innovative products, providing CSEM's partners and customers with a clear differentiator in their offering and market positioning. Typical applications and markets addressed are to be found in the area of industrial quality control, automation, security or medicine.

The Photonics program deals in particular with the development of the following:

CMOS image sensors

• Featuring high dynamic range, high speed and high sensitivity
• Providing added on-chip signal and image processing capabilities tailored to the customers' specific needs
• For real-time 3D imaging applications based on time-of-flight, on parallel optical low coherence tomography or on triangulation principles

Optical components and systems

• Including the design, simulation and testing of miniaturized optical elements, in particular plastic optical elements manufactured by injection molding
• With a special focus on applications in metrology and biomedical imaging

Highly miniaturized camera systems

• Including the development of embedded electronics, image processing and solid-state illumination
• Featuring unconventional functions and performance, such as ultra-low-power panorama cameras for autonomous micro-aerial vehicles

X-ray imaging

• Based on single photon counting for improved sensitivity and contrast
• Direct detection for increased sensitivity and spatial resolution
• Based on interferometry and so-called Phase Contrast Imaging with the objective of significantly advancing the state of the art in X-ray imaging on low absorbing material such as biological tissues and the human skin
• Targeting applications in the medical field, in security and in industrial quality inspection.