- by SPIE, College of Engineering Communications
- January 20, 2026
For decades, the ability to visualize the chemical composition of materials, whether for diagnosing a disease, assessing food quality or analyzing pollution, depended on large, expensive laboratory instruments called spectrometers.
These devices work by taking light, spreading it out into a rainbow using a prism or grating and measuring the intensity of each color. The problem is that spreading light requires a long physical path, making the device inherently bulky.
