History
Commercially available laboratory-based chemical imaging systems emerged in the early 1990s (ref. 1-5). In addition to economic factors, such as the need for sophisticated electronics and extremely high-end computers, a significant barrier to commercialization of infrared imaging was that the focal plane array (FPA) needed to read IR images were not readily available as commercial items. As high-speed electronics and sophisticated computers became more commonplace, and infrared cameras became readily commercially available, laboratory chemical imaging systems were introduced.
Initially used for novel research in specialized laboratories, chemical imaging became a more commonplace analytical technique used for general R&D, quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) in less than a decade. The rapid acceptance of the technology in a variety of industries (pharmaceutical, polymers, semiconductors, security, forensics and agriculture) rests in the wealth of information characterizing both chemical composition and morphology. The parallel nature of chemical imaging data makes it possible to analyze multiple samples simultaneously for applications that require high throughput analysis in addition to characterizing a single sample.
Read more about this topic: Chemical Imaging
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of literature—take the net result of Tiraboshi, Warton, or Schlegel,—is a sum of a very few ideas, and of very few original tales,—all the rest being variation of these.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.”
—Imre Lakatos (1922–1974)
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)