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Engineering Services

From material selection to custom coating design — engineering support at every stage of your optical project.

Material Selection Guide

Choosing the right optical material is the foundation of every successful optical design. The wrong material — even one that transmits at your wavelength — can lead to thermal lensing, coating failure, or premature degradation in the field.

We work with over 30 optical materials across the UV, visible, and IR spectrum. Our material selection process considers not just transmission range, but thermal properties (conductivity, dn/dT, CTE), mechanical properties (hardness, fracture toughness), environmental compatibility, and cost — all weighted against your specific application requirements.

Common Material Families:

  • BK7 / B270 — Visible/NIR general purpose, cost-effective
  • UV Fused Silica — UV to NIR, high laser damage threshold
  • CaF2 — Deep UV to mid-IR, low dispersion
  • Sapphire — UV to mid-IR, extreme hardness
  • ZnSe — Visible to far-IR, CO2 laser standard
  • Germanium — Mid-IR to LWIR, high refractive index
  • Silicon — NIR to MWIR, excellent thermal conductivity

Browse Materials Database

Coating Design Guide

Optical coatings determine how light interacts with your component's surfaces. The right coating can increase transmission from 92% to 99.9%, reflect laser light with >99.99% efficiency, or split beams with precise wavelength-dependent ratios. The wrong coating introduces loss, scatter, and potential failure points.

Our coating capabilities include:

Anti-Reflection (AR)

Single-layer and multi-layer AR coatings. Residual reflectivity < 0.1% at design wavelength. Optimized for laser damage threshold when required.

High-Reflectance (HR)

Dielectric HR mirrors with >99.99% reflectivity at design wavelength. Custom designs for laser cavities and beam steering.

Bandpass / Dichroic

Precision wavelength-selective coatings for fluorescence, multi-spectral imaging, and wavelength division applications.

Metallic Coatings

Protected Silver, Protected Gold, Enhanced Aluminum — broadband reflection from UV to far-IR with environmental protection.

Optical Tolerance Guide

Tighter tolerances mean higher cost — but not always better system performance. The art of optical specification is knowing where tight tolerances matter and where they don't.

Key Tolerance Parameters:

Surface Flatness lambda/4 (standard) to lambda/20 (precision)
Surface Quality 60-35 (standard) to 10-5 (premium) per MIL-PRF-13830B
Parallelism / Wedge 3 arc-min (standard) to 10 arc-sec (precision)
Centering 3 arc-min (standard) to 30 arc-sec (precision)
Dimensional Tolerance +/-0.1mm (standard) to +/-0.01mm (precision)

Our engineering team can review your tolerance requirements and recommend the most cost-effective specifications that meet your system's actual performance needs. Over-specifying wastes budget; under-specifying risks system performance.

Custom Optical Design

When catalog components don't meet your requirements, our engineering team can design custom optical solutions. From single custom lenses to multi-element assemblies, we work from your system specifications to deliver optics that perform exactly as needed.

Custom Design Process:

1
Requirement Review

Analyze your optical system needs, wavelength, power, environment

2
Design Proposal

Material selection, coating design, tolerance analysis

3
Prototype

Manufacture samples, full inspection, performance verification

4
Production

Volume manufacturing with batch consistency control

Design for Manufacturability (DFM)

A design that works in theory may be expensive or impossible to manufacture consistently. Our DFM review identifies manufacturability issues before production — saving time, cost, and frustration.

When you submit a drawing or specification, our engineering team reviews:

DFM review is included at no charge with every custom quote. We believe the best results come from collaboration between designer and manufacturer from the start.

Custom Design Capability

From simple custom dimensions to complex multi-element assemblies — we design optics around your requirements.

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Standard Customization

Custom dimensions, thickness, and coatings on standard optical forms. Fast turnaround — typical lead time 1-3 weeks.

  • Custom sizes from 1mm to 300mm
  • Custom thickness and wedge
  • Customer-specified coatings
  • Standard and precision grades

Complex Custom Optics

Aspheres, free-form surfaces, and unusual geometries. Designed from your optical system specifications.

  • Aspheric surfaces
  • Cylindrical and toroidal optics
  • Custom prism geometries
  • Specialty window profiles
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Optical Assemblies

Multi-element lens assemblies, beam expanders, and integrated optical sub-systems delivered as complete modules.

  • Achromatic and apochromatic assemblies
  • Beam expander modules
  • Imaging lens groups
  • Mounted and aligned assemblies

Tolerance Capability

Typical capabilities — from commercial grade to ultra-precision specifications. Actual achievable tolerances depend on material, size, geometry and production process.

Parameter Standard Grade Precision Grade Ultra-Precision
Surface Quality 60-40 / 40-20 20-10 10-5 / 5-2
Surface Flatness λ/2 to λ/4 λ/10 λ/20 to λ/50
Center Thickness ±0.1 mm ±0.02 mm ±0.005 mm
Dimensional Tolerance ±0.1 mm ±0.02 mm ±0.01 mm
Parallelism / Wedge 5 arc-min 30 arc-sec 5 arc-sec
Centration (lenses) 3 arc-min 1 arc-min 30 arc-sec

Actual achievable tolerances depend on material, size, and geometry. Contact us for specific capability review.

Coating Design Capability

Physical vapor deposition coatings designed for your exact wavelength, angle and performance requirements.

Anti-Reflection (AR)

  • Single-layer MgF₂
  • Multi-layer broadband AR
  • Dual-band and triple-band
  • V-coat (single wavelength)
  • Laser-line AR with LIDT spec

High-Reflectance (HR)

  • Protected Aluminum / Silver / Gold
  • Enhanced Aluminum / Silver
  • Dielectric HR (99.9%+)
  • Laser-line HR mirrors
  • Broadband dielectric mirrors
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Filter Coatings

  • Narrow bandpass filters
  • Shortpass / Longpass edge
  • Dichroic / Notch filters
  • Neutral density (ND)
  • Multi-band bandpass
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Specialty Coatings

  • Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC)
  • Phase coatings for prisms
  • Dispersion-compensated GTI
  • Partial reflectors / output couplers
  • Polarizing / non-polarizing beam splitter

Prototype to Production

One consistent process from first prototype to volume production. No surprises when scaling up.

1

Design Review

Engineering review of specs, material and coating selection, DFM feedback

24-48 hours

2

Prototype

1-10 pieces. Full inspection report. Validate performance in your system

1-3 weeks

3

Pilot Run

50-500 pieces. Process documentation, yield verification, batch consistency

3-6 weeks

4

Production

Volume manufacturing. SPC, batch inspection, scheduled deliveries

4-8 weeks recurring

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