Nuclear inspection benefits from new gen sensor lens

Mark Pontin, Managing Director of Resolve Optics commented: “Increasingly the nuclear energy industry has adopted colour CMOS sensors able to withstand the effects of radiation encountered in inspection of radioactive sites. Unfortunately most non-browning glasses traditionally used to produce radiation-hard sensor lenses are yellow tinted which gives colour images acquired by CMOS cameras an unhelpful yellow appearance.” 

He added, “A recent project for a nuclear energy industry operator demonstrates the advances that Resolve Optics has achieved in order to mitigate this problem.”

A major European organisation involved in the nuclear energy industry sought a lens for their CMOS sensor that could provide natural colour images while still retaining non-browning performance in environments subject to radiation. Selecting specialist glasses, Resolve Optics delivered a compact f/2 lens able to produce ‘near natural’ colour images whilst also withstanding long-term exposure to radiation up to a dose of 100 million radians and temperatures to 55°C without discoloration.

This new lens design innovation is enabling the customer to further improve plant inspection as they now have access to high clarity, natural colour images.