Dr. Helen Waechter is leading the optics development team at Helbling and she is responsible for providing innovation and engineering services for customer projects involving optics and photonics. She has more than 19 years of experience in developing optical systems and devices for various areas including medical technology, industry, and research. Before joining Helbling in 2017, she was a postdoc at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and a senior scientist and IP & technology partnerships manager at Tiger Optics in Pennsylvania, USA. Helen Waechter is a graduate in physics and holds a PhD in laser spectroscopy from ETH Zurich.
When developing a device containing a photonic integrated circuit (PIC), the architecture of both the PIC and the overall system plays a crucial role in various aspects, such as PIC packaging design, assembly processes and required manufacturing tools. A key consideration is to determine which functionalities are best suited for integration on the PIC and which should remain external. This decision depends on technical feasibility, its impact on PIC integration and manufacturing considerations, as well as commercial viability. We will discuss these questions using a handheld optical coherence tomography (OCT) device as a case study.