Optical
Subassemblies
provides optical design and consulting service to clients on a wide
range
of optical systems. Examples range from a simple single element
system
to machine vision cameras complete with custom imaging and illumination
optics. We have experience at wavelengths ranging from the
ultraviolet
to middle infrared.
Our
primary CAD tool for lens design is Zemaxtm ,
which enables us to design systems with both conventional spherical
surfaces
as well as non-conventional aspheric, anamorphic and tilted surfaces to
name a few. It provides graphical output of a wide variety of
lens
parameters ranging from mechanical layouts of the lens system or
individual
elements to performance characteristics such as spot diagrams,
modulation
transfer functions and image analysis. If optical terminology is
unfamiliar, we will work with you to ensure that you are
comfortable
with both the subject and the design. We will not leave you with
a design report which you do not understand.
Some
optical designs such as oddly shaped light pipes are not well suited to
traditional optical design programs such as Zemaxtm and
better suited to non-sequential ray tracing systems such as Opticadtm.
Opticad is capable of analyzing systems which are comprised of tilted
surfaces
such as one might encounter in optical integrators or injection molded
light pipes.
An additional design
tool
is TFCalctm from
Software
Spectra. This program enables us to analyze a wide variety of
metallic
and thin film coatings which might be applied to optical surfaces and
to
synthesize potential coatings which might be needed to meet certain
system
specifications. Thin film coating is an art and we would be
reluctant
to tell a thin film coating company how to do their job. However
it is always useful to be able to gauge the difficulty of a particular
task.