Drawing upon its uniquely stable production facility - Optical Surfaces Ltd. has established itself as a leading supplier of larger diameter hyperbolic mirrors and the extremely tight tolerances and accuracy that these optics demand. Hyperbolic mirrors are used in telescopes to correct aberrations in Ritchey-Chrétien designs, such as the Hubble telescope, by focusing off-axis light, allowing for wider fields of view and high optical performance. They are also often used as secondary mirrors in...

Optical Surfaces Ltd has received an order from Armstrong Optical, a leading UK supplier of optical metrology instruments, to supply high specification transmission and reference flats for a custom interferometer. Being built for a leading defence contractor the interferometer will be used to evaluate the quality and certify the performance of advanced military optical systems. Darren Wiles, R&D Manager at Armstrong Optical commented “Reference flat interferometry is a trusted optical...

Optical Surfaces Ltd is a leading supplier of modular and standalone reflective beam reducers to laser facilities looking to perform accurate diagnostics and precise measurements on their beamlines. A reflective beam reducer is a device that uses mirrors to reduce the diameter of a collimated laser beam. Unlike transmissive beam reducers that use lenses, reflective laser beam reducers from Optical Surfaces Ltd offer advantages such as high transmission, no chromatic aberration, and the ability...

Optical Surfaces Ltd reports how its proprietary smoothing techniques largely eliminate surface microcrack damage from the off-axis parabolic mirrors it produces for high-power laser applications. As a result, the achievable performance and operational lifetime of these critical focusing mirrors is enhanced. Surface microcracks introduced during machining processes such as grinding, can reduce the glass's intrinsic strength by creating stress concentration points. These defects not only...

Optical Surfaces Ltd has developed a novel kinematic mounting arrangement for its pre-aligned beam collimator and beam expander sub-assemblies. Traditionally large diameter or longer focal length optical systems require an extremely large, heavy and expensive reflective beam collimator system. Benefiting from a lightweight modular design - pre-aligned beam collimator kits from Optical Surfaces Ltd overcome these shortfalls. The introduction of kinetic mounting on these pre-aligned modules...