Headwall Photonics

Headwall Photonics, Inc. designs spectral instrumentation for satellite, airborne, and ground-based applications. The Company was founded in 2003 as a result of a management buy-out of Agilent Technologies' optical division. Prior to the Agilent acquisition, the Company was known as American Holographic Incorporated.
Headwall's core technologies include holographic diffraction gratings, diamond-turned diffraction gratings, OEM spectral engines and imaging spectrometers. These components and assemblies are then used in the production of analytical instrumentation as well as hyperspectral sensors and imagers produced for OEMs and end-users by Headwall. These instruments are increasingly useful in fields such as food safety and quality in-line pharmaceutical inspection, forensic science, health-care screening, precision agriculture, reconnaissance, color measurement, chemical analysis, and mineral & mining exploration. Headwall employs the push-broom scanner technology with its characteristic ability to collect more light than whisk broom designs.
Headwall focuses on hyperspectral and Raman imaging, which reflectively looks at objects using a vast portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. All objects or targets leave unique ' spectral fingerprints' across the electromagnetic spectrum. These 'fingerprints' are known as spectral signatures and enable identification of the materials that make up a scanned object. Airborne deployment of small, rugged hyperspectral sensors is a major growth area for military/defense applications as well as food and agriculture programs that help farmers make crucial decisions about crops, diseases, harvesting, and nutrient conditions of the soil below.
Key sensor technical innovation is derived through patented technology and sensor designs utilizing aberration-corrected, reflective concentric imagers that allow for the use of very tall image slits that enable wide field-of-view imaging for optimized spectral and spatial resolution.
Two of Headwall's hyperspectral sensors, one called Hyperspec Point-and-Stare and the other caller Hyperspec RECON, were chosen as PRISM Award Finalists for 2010 and 2011 respectively. The Company's diffraction grating technology was also recognized with an R&D 100 industry award.
In June 2012, the Company's Hyperspec RECON handheld VNIR sensor was chosen as winner of the prestigious R&D100 Award, which represents the top 100 technology products introduced during the year.

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