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Highly Aspheric Mirrors and Lenses from Optical Surfaces

Drawing upon over 40 years experience of manufacturing high precision optics - Optical Surfaces Ltd. has developed considerable expertise in producing highly aspheric lenses and off-axis / on-axis parabolic mirrors.

The requirement for highly aspheric mirrors and lenses is particularly prevalent in space-borne optical systems, astronomical telescopes and the next generation of very high power laser systems. Driven by the high cost of launching payloads into space - considerable demands are placed upon reducing the size and weight of optical systems. Many of the designs for the new generation of astronomical telescopes use a segmented spherical primary mirror coupled with highly aspheric mirrors in order to compensate for the primary spherical aberration. To achieve the highest laser power densities - fusion researchers require the highest achievable optical throughput combined with pinpoint focusing capabilities. The realisation of these optics, due to the required large aspherisation, is a real technical challenge for optical manufacturing.

Using proprietary production techniques - Optical Surfaces Ltd has proven itself able to generate highly aspheric parabolic mirrors with off-axis angles approaching 30 degrees and focal lengths as short as 100mm. Leveraging the same experience and benefiting from a uniquely stable manufacturing environment the company routinely produces highly aspheric, fast focusing (to f 0.5) on-axis parabolic mirrors. With its team of skilled technicians and engineers, Optical Surfaces Ltd is also able to fabricate high performance aspheric lenses with tight tolerances. Excellent performance is achieved with low surface scatter (20-10 scratch-dig) and high surface accuracy (lambda/20).

The complex surface profile of aspheres offers excellent correction of spherical aberration and reduce other optical aberrations compared to a simple lens or mirror. A single aspheric lens or mirror can often replace a much more complex multi-element system. The resulting device is smaller and lighter, and sometimes cheaper than the multi-element design. On-axis parabolic mirrors produce collimated reflected light and are used in applications that require very fast focusing and high energy densities. Off-axis parabolic mirrors provide an unobstructed aperture allowing complete access to the focal region as well as reducing the size and minimising the weight of a design. They are especially suitable for broadband or multiple wavelength applications due to their completely achromatic performance.

Production approved to ISO 9001-2000 the high quality of aspheric lenses and mirrors from Optical Surfaces Ltd. is ensured by a range of interferometric and surface test measurements on all orders leaving the factory.

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