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Engineering Intern Highlights of Summer 2025
Highlighting the innovative work of Daisy Freeman, Avantes Summer 2025 Intern!
With summer coming to a close, we would like to highlight some of the work accomplished by our summer engineering intern, Daisy Freeman. Daisy, a senior Mechanical Engineering student at Lehigh University, applied her knowledge and skills to multiple projects at Avantes Inc., including enhancements to our thin film measurement system, a full demo overhaul, and extending functionality for our AvaLight-XE-Mini pulsed xenon light source.
Project 1: Adding an AvaLight-DHc option to our Ava-Reflectometer Thin Film Measurement System
One goal of the Avantes Inc. Engineering team is to provide more complete spectroscopy solutions for specific applications. To improve our Ava-Reflectometer thin film measurement system, Daisy designed and 3D-printed a new internal bracket to mount the AvaLight-DHc in place of the standard Hal-S-Mini. Despite the DHc’s larger footprint, she successfully fitted it without modifying the main enclosure, expanding the system’s UV measurement capabilities. While currently 3D-printed, future updates may include a more robust aluminum version.
Project 2: Overhauling a Motorized Demo
Earlier this year, our engineering team quickly assembled a pill-sorting demo for a trade show using NIR spectroscopy to distinguish between aspirin and ibuprofen pills. Daisy spent her summer overhauling the system, enhancing both functionality and presentation. She implemented quieter operation with a gear-driven turntable, added an optical trigger for automated measurements, enlarged the turntable for more samples, and installed a cover to reduce ambient light. Not only is the demo now polished and fully functional, but it also supports a variety of measurements, including transmission with multiple optical filters. We’re excited to showcase this improved system, along with others, at Photonics West 2026.
Project 3: Adding “shutter” capability to the AvaLight-XE-Mini via a control box
The last project Daisy worked on was a device that extends the TTL shutter functionality within AvaSoft 8 to our AvaLight-XE-Mini pulsed xenon light source. While this light source is compact and versatile in its applications, one glaring limitation is its lack of internal shutter, a feature that is available in our AvaLight-DHc, AvaLight-Hal-S-Mini, and AvaLight-DH-S. The benefit of this feature is that, when connected to one of our spectrometers via an interface cable, a user can enable the “TTL Shutter on Save Dark” function in AvaSoft to automatically activate the internal shutter of a light source while taking a dark measurement. For the XE-Mini and our other pulsed xenon light sources, the only means of deactivating the flashes during a dark measurement are to set the number of flashes per scan to 0, or to disconnect the light source from power or the spectrometer (in the case of the standard AvaLight-XE, the light source can simply be switched off, though this is still not an automated function). With Daisy’s help, in her last two days nonetheless, we developed a control box with an internal relay that utilizes the “TTL Shutter on Save Dark” signal to automatically cut power to the xenon source when a dark measurement is taken, effectively allowing for a “shutter” function for these pulsed sources. While this accessory is still in the prototyping stage, this is another example of Daisy’s novel work with Avantes Inc. in just the few short months she was here.
Beyond her major projects, Daisy’s curiosity, dedication, and creativity touched nearly every corner of our lab this summer. From updating optical filter documentation and performing wavelength calibrations, to designing custom 3D-printed fixtures and contributing to our Spectra of the Month and Spectral Tips and Techniques newsletter, her impact was felt in both big and small ways. We are truly grateful for her energy, expertise, and enthusiasm, and we know she will continue to accomplish great things in her future.
Thank you, Daisy, for an outstanding summer at Avantes Inc.!