AN INTRODUCTION TO OPTOELECTRONIC SENSORS
Although most of the basic principles of optoelectronic (OE) sensors have been known for more than forty years, and optoelectronic sensor technology emerged over the past 10–20 years, the industrial applications are relatively new. The last years, however, have seen a growing interest in this field, which has resulted in a market growth rate of more than 50% per year. On the other hand, the overall optoelectronic market is quite healthy, nowadays, and is going to be mature as a trillion dollar business.
The reasons for the success of OE sensors may be attributed on one hand to the strong decrease of the price of most of the required devices, also due to the increasing diffusion of low-cost optical telecommunication components, and on the other hand to the possibility of easily integrating many optical devices in a single chip.
The availability of a large variety of new or advanced materials has also contributed to the improvement of the general performance of optoelectronic sensors and of their design flexibility.
Looking at the scientific literature, it clearly appears that in the recent years there has been an increasing number of journals and magazines dealing with the subject of sensors, with large room dedicated to optical and optoelectronic devices. Every year, published papers propose a large number of novel configurations and applications.
In parallel, a growing number of industrial applications is also being demonstrated, which run from a better process control to safety and security improvement, with particular care devoted to transportation, environment, structural health monitoring and food quality. As diagnostic OE devices continue to be kept smaller, more portable, more energy efficient, and cheaper, their use in bio-medical applications will continue to grow. We can also expect that OE sensors will significantly contribute to intelligent information systems in stationary and mobile applications.
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