Custom Optics and Optical Systems

Optical Surfaces Ltd. has been producing high precision custom optical components and systems for more than 50 years and is today internationally acknowledged for its technical expertise, attention to quality and customer service.

With the main workshops and test facilities deep underground in an area excavated from solid chalk, temperatures remain constant year-round and vibration is practically non-existent. These are important considerations when making, mounting and testing high precision optics and optical systems.The company is delighted to quote for users’ specific drawing requirements or carry out prototype and possibility work at the initial stages of a project.

Examples of customoptics produced

Motorized optical systems

Mounted optics and mirrors

Large diameter optics

Optical Interferometers

Lightweight mirrors

Irregularly shaped optics

Customer news story: Lightweight Mirrors for Satellite and Astronomical Telescopes

Designed with special production methods and the knowledge of its skilled craftsman — Optical Surfaces Ltd has the ability to generate lightweight mirrors integrating high structural strength, top optical performanceand considerable component weight reduction.

To identify new celestial objects and to study familiar objects more precisely, ultra-high precision telescope mirrors that do not raise payload weights are increasingly needed for telescope-based experiments performed outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

Furthermore, lightweight mirrors enable the manufacturing of bigger terrestrial telescopic instruments compared to what would be possible with solid mirrors. Solid mirrors are not only mechanically heavy but are also hard to cast and safely cool into single, big blocks of glass.

Optical Surfaces’ light-weighting methods can decrease the weight of the mirror by as much as 60%.

Optical Surfaces lightweight mirrors offer enough stiffness for ultra-high precision optical performance while decreasing the weight of the mirror. In turn, the reduced weight enables lighter, smaller support and control structures, thereby decreasing the total cost of the telescope.

Gaining advantage from an especially stable manufacturing environment — Optical Surfaces is able to regularly generate highly aspheric, fast-focusing (to f 0.5) parabolic mirrors. With its team of skilled technicians and engineers, Optical Surfaces is also capable of fabricating high-performance aspheric lenses along with tight tolerances.

Outstanding performance is guaranteed via the production of aspheric lenses with exceptional surface quality — low surface scatters (20 to10 scratch-digs) and high surface accuracy (λ/20).

Optical Surfaces ISO 9001-2008 approved manufacturing facility offers flexible resources to supply from single specialist requirements to OEM quantities. Thanks to its stable surrounding, quality testing is reliable and quantifiable. All lightweight mirrors come with a full quality test assurance report.

Image Credit: Optical Surfaces Ltd.