Displays show what's going on in the optics industry.
Nifty New Optics Technologies
December 2006 / January 2007
Volume 4 Number 6
New ways to examine the eye, better and cheaper fiber optics, and cool (literally) new telescopes: Mirror Tech Days, an annual forum for government-contract work in telescope imaging, offered a sneak preview of new optics technologies.
Held in Albuquerque in September, the event allowed federal agencies to see technologies funded by their peers through the Small Business Innovation Research program. It also brought major contractors together with startups.
"Unclassified technologies are available for tech transfer, and many are already in the pipeline," said NASA's Phil Stahl, the event's founder. Organizers were the New Mexico Optics Industry Association and the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE).
One hot topic was adaptive optics, the science of compensating for image distortions caused when light passes through the atmosphere or certain materials. Adaptive-optics systems analyze incoming light (wave front) and adapt for distortions with a deformable mirror, which renders a sharp image.
A Berkeley, Calif., startup offered one of the more novel applications—€”a MEMS-based, adaptive-optics system so small and flexible it can be used by eye doctors to examine the retina.
"The eye introduces imperfections," said Michael Helmbrecht, CEO of Iris AO Inc. "If we could compensate for these imperfections, we could actually see the back of the eye, the retina, at a cellular level."
From work done at the University of California-Berkeley, Iris AO has developed a deformable, 3.5mm mirror that's divided into segments, each independently positioned to respond to any incoming wave front. Such technologies have been prohibitively expensive, but Iris AO has whittled down cost and power consumption.
Adaptive optics was one of four presentations by Schafer Corp., a Massachusetts maker of optical devices and systems. Schafer discussed its high wave-front control mirror (beam director), which minimizes distortions from the laser's impact.
The company made two presentations about telescopes that can be dramatically cooled to improve performance. One of these is used to study the sun. Because a major solar flare can disrupt cellphone communications and disable airplane avionics, the ability to detect these events would allow satellite providers and airlines to protect people and assets. Cooling prevents the sun's heat from warming the telescope and altering the mirror's prescription.
Another hot subject at Mirror Tech Days was materials. Schafer presented its phosphate athermal glass. When conventional glass heats up and expands, light passing through slows down and travels a greater distance. Schafer's glass allows light to pass through in the same amount of time as cooler, unexpanded glass.
This has promising applications in telecommunications, Goodman said. Signals traveling through conventional glass fibers must be amplified in repeater stations every dozen miles because glass absorbs the signal. Fibers made from athermal glass allow amplification stations to be spaced farther apart, reducing costs. Other applications include self-correcting optics, which the company is beginning to sell to commercial users.
CVI Laser, an Albuquerque-based optics supplier, was technology shopping. "We came to see what they're working on so we can decide what markets to enter," said marketing director Lynore Abbott. "We're in a position to spin interesting technologies out."
What caught her eye? "We like the athermal glass," she said.
New materials require new processes. Mound Laser & Photonics Center does laser materials processing, with a focus on micro- and nano-level manufacturing. The company, established in 1995 in Miamisburg, Ohio, has machined everything from large 3D circuits to small bio-filters. For Mirror Tech Days, MLPC described laser micromachining of silicon carbide mirrors.
MPLC has a unique tech-transfer program called "concurrent commercialization." Because half its customers are public and half are private, "it allows us to find an immediate pathway to commercialization," said CEO Larry Dosser. "When we write an SBIR proposal, we have a commercial application in mind."
During the grant's Phase 1, MLPC begins working with commercial customers and keeps them informed through Phase 2. "By the time we complete Phase 2, we have commercial customers already," he said.
Silicon carbide processing was also the subject of CoorsTek, which has a long history in ceramic materials and also manufactures optics, optical structures, and telescopes. The Hillsboro, Ore., company discussed its improved process for manufacturing multi-meter mirrors of silicon carbide for space telescope applications.
"Silicon carbide is a ceramic material we offer that has a better stiffness-to-weight ratio than glass," says Steve Williams, product development manager.
It's now possible to build a two- to three-meter mirror with 25 percent of the mass of a conventional material. "If the Hubble telescope mirror had been made of silicon carbide, it would weigh several hundred pounds instead of 1.5 tons," Williams said.
The material can be used to make the entire telescope, which simplifies the design and makes it easier to keep the instrument aligned and in focus, he adds.
McCarter Machine has its roots in materials for old industry but found a unique niche in high tech. The Houston-area company, founded in 1981, began by introducing new materials to chemical and oil companies to solve corrosion problems. McCarter graduated in 1988 to single-crystal silicon glass used in the semiconductor industry.
"Companies around the nation started coming to us because we could make unusual shapes," said founder Doug McCarter.
In the 1990s the company began making high-energy laser components using this material and demonstrated that it could be substituted for beryllium. At the same time McCarter developed proprietary processes in super-finishing, frit-bonding, and metal inserting. In its Mirror Tech Days presentation, McCarter shared the company's techniques.
Before you place an expensive material on a million-dollar machine, you might want to test the process inside a computer.
Minneapolis-based Third Wave Systems provides modeling software and services to dramatically reduce costs in product design and manufacturing. One software product can analyze milling, drilling and turning processes in detail for more than 120 materials.
Third Wave's presentation at Mirror Tech Days related to manufacturing improvements for windows and mirrors, said marketing specialist Stephanie Heyroth.
"We're developing modeling technology to enable ductile mold machining of ceramic and glass materials. DMM technology will achieve up to 50 percent cycle time reduction because it reduces or eliminates grinding, lapping and polishing in producing high quality surfaces in brittle materials," Heyroth said.
Mirror Tech Days participants describe benefits beyond the expected networking. Says AO Iris's Helmbrecht, "It's useful to see the problems others have faced and how they solved them. Just to see what the big-mirror people are doing is an eye-opening experience."
For more information about these and other technologies, see www.nmoia.org.
Sherry Robinson is a freelance writer based in Albuquerque.
Copyright © 2012 | Innovation America