Living Optics Limited

Company description

Living Optics develops imaging technology.

The company is based upon STFC-supported patents for a novel design of 3D spectrometer that can retrieve 3D spectral profile in a single measurement. The 3D spectrometer design is built upon the concept of compressed sensing to make it possible to retrieve 3D information from 2D data from a screen/camera. In contrast to common spectrometers, the 3D spectrometer uses a wide slit instead of a narrow slit and retrieve the 3D datacube that consists of 2D spatial and 1D spectral information. Numerical tests were performed to simulate the retrieval of spectral profiles. The results show that the retrieved profiles match well the original profiles. We have also shown that the retrieved signal from the 3D spectrometer is robust enough for further post-processing analysis.

Project impact

The company was formed in March 2020. We are concentrating on the design of a 3D spectrometer. It is valued at £6.75M and employs ten people. The Venture Radar group listed us on https://blog.ventureradar.com/2020/09/29/the-top-20-newly-founded-university-spin-offs-you-should-know/ as an up and coming company. Grant ST/T000724/1 supported the launch of this company. The 2020 patent has been assigned patent number GB1912726.5, and will be progressing to A1 (publicly available). The private funding, as promised, from Oxford Science Innovation was fulfilled. Also promised were the three following: 1. A camera attachment that conducts the SHP manipulations (section 2, figure 2) to incoming light before detection on a CCD/CMOS. 2. A software package that reconstructs a three dimensional dataset from the CCD/CMOS signal. 3. Accessories. Option for an included camera optimised for the SHP, and standardised mounts (C-mount/EF-mount) for an user preferred camera. All three objectives were delivered.