COE Optics

Corner Cube Retroreflector: Wide & Unique Applications

Corner Cube Retroreflector can be used to reflect rays in a direction accurately antiparallel to its initial course, irrespective of the angle of incidence. Corner reflectors occur in two varieties. In the more common form, the corner is exactly the truncated corner of a cube of transparent material such as conventional optical glass. In this structure, the reflection is realized either by total internal reflection or silvering of the outer cube surfaces. Another form uses mutually perpendicular flat mirrors bracketing an air space. These two categories have similar optical properties.

Corner Cube Retroreflector is a device or surface that reflects light back to its source with a minimum of refraction. It is an optical component with the unique capacity to return an incoming beam of light directly towards its point of origin regardless of the beam’s angle of entry. This property makes this prism type ideal for a wide variety of applications, such as laser resonator cavities, land surveying, ground based range-finding, satellite communications and space vehicle docking.

In the year 1962, an alternative application for Corner Cube Retroreflector was demonstrated during the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment. Scientists accomplished in observing laser pulses reflected from a corner cube retroreflector array left on the surface of the Moon by those involved in the Apollo 11 mission.

Learn About Optical Lenses & Why It Must Produce Exacting Quality

If you require an expert lenses manufacturer to create lenses to meet your particularly high, exacting and rigid specifications with steady quality, you need to research your lenses manufacturer options carefully.

What Is Optical Lenses?

Optical Lenses are designed to focus or diverge light. These lenses that may consist of a single or multiple elements are utilized in a wide variety of applications such as microscopy to laser processing. Industries like life sciences, imaging, industrial, or defence utilize Optical Lenses. Understand like this – as light passes through a lens, the lens’ profile or substrate will affect it course. As for applications requiring color correction, Achromatic Lenses are ideal, while Silicon Lenses are ideal for transmitting the Infrared (IR) spectrum and Fused Silica is apt for the Ultraviolet (UV).

Sapphire Lenses are excellent substrate for a range of rugged applications. It has high transmission and is ideal for UV, Visible and IR applications. These lenses have outstanding mechanical strength and hardness. Due to superb thermal and chemical resistance and being scratch resistant, sapphire is a perfect choice for lens applications. Coe Optics supplies a range of Sapphire Lenses solutions as per you need. Lenses can also be anti-reflective coated for greater efficiency in UV and IR applications.

Rod lenses are special type of cylinder lenses, and are extremely polished on the circumference and ground on each ends. How Rod lenses perform? It performs in a manner analogous to a standard cylinder lenses, and can be used in beam shaping and to focus collimated light into a line. It also play a key part in many laser and imaging optical applications, and also used in applications such as for UV, visible and NIR. Fused Silica Rod Lenses particularly have high transmission in the UV and through the NIR besides it has a low coefficient of thermal expansion. While Cut-rod lenses ends is ground to the desired size which allows us to provide custom sizes as required from microsizes to full-sized lenses.

The process of precisely aligning light or particles in a parallel way is known as Collimating. For light measurement, Collimating Lenses make sure that the light has minimal spread as it propagates. These lenses are attached to spectrometers, colorimeters or light meters to confirm that the light that enters the instrument is parallel and be responsible for accurate analyses. Custom design Collimating Lenses can excellently correct spherical and chromatic aberrations, together with singlet and chromatic lenses.

Top Benefits of UV and IR Windows

In the simplest terms, UV Windows are basically windows that provide protection against the harmful UV light. There are two major ways in which an individual can enhance the level of UV protection of his or her home. And those two ways include installing low-E windows and adding a protective UV film. In majority cases, a UV window is virtually clear.

What is an IR Window?

IR Windows are also known more fully as infrared windows. An IR window can be defined as optically designed and engineered windows that allow infrared inspection of electrical components that are located within switchgear enclosures.

Infrared windows consist of a frame, made up of either metal or plastic, which further supports an infrared transmissive optic. And depending on the type of window, the optics can either be made from crystal or polymer material.

The Benefits of UV and IR Windows

There are various benefits that an individual can experience if he or she decides to install a UV and IR window. And some of those benefits are mentioned below.

According to various studies, using a UV window or IR windows, an individual can save a lot of money on heating and cooling costs.
IR and UV windows do not just protect the furniture of the individual or the user ,but these windows also reduce the risk arc flash incidents and electrocution
Using IR and UV windows also create a glare-free environment inside the home. This makes the entire place more comfortable for living

Choosing right UV and IR windows plays a crucial role. So make sure you pick right source to buy one.

The Use & significance of Cold Mirror, Hot Mirror and Laser Mirror

Hot mirrors and cold mirrors are used to separate infrared radiation from the visible part of the spectrum. A cold mirror reflects visible light and transmits infrared, while hot mirror reflects infrared and transmits the visible light. These mirrors are often used with lamps for heat control. They are also used in a combination of both hot and cold mirrors. They can be made for an incidence angle ranging between zero and 45 degrees. These mirrors are also designed with multi-layer dielectric coatings as interference filter.

H ot mirror is ideal for reducing heats. These multilayer dielectric mirrors are used for separating the energy beam into its visible and infrared components. They reflect 90% of the NIR and IR and transmits 80% of visible light and work like a short pass edge filter by transmitting visible wavelengths at a 0° angle of incidence, while reflecting near-infrared and heat-generating wavelengths. It is used for removing unwanted heat from an optical system.

Laser mirror are optical mirrors used for beam-steering in demanding laser applications. Many of these mirrors come with coatings that have been optimized for high reflectance at laser wavelengths. There is a wide array of laser line mirrors available in market for a range of laser types, including YAG, Excimer, Argon-Ion, Laser Diode, or Sapphire and more.

Common Features & Functions of Optical Mirrors

Optical mirrors are used in a wide variety of optical industrial sectors. Some of the optical mirrors used for specialized applications are hot, cold, backside polished, ultrafast, D-shaped, elliptical, parabolic, concave, and laser line dielectric-coated optical mirrors.

Hot mirror and cold mirror are used for eliminating unwanted energy from a light emitting source. A hot mirror is a dichroic filter capable of reflecting 90% of near infrared (NIR) and infrared (IR) light while transmitting up to 80% of the visible light. They transmit shorter wavelength and reflect infrared energy. These mirrors are made using a multi-layer dielectric coating to the glass substrate such as borosilicate glass.

A Cold Mirror is a dichroic filter capable to reflect up to 90% of the visible light spectrum while allowing 80% of transmission of infrared wavelengths IR and near IR wavelengths. They reflect the shorter wavelengths and transmit the heat (infrared). Cold mirror is made by applying a multi-layer dielectric coating to the glass substrate. These mirrors are capable of reducing the heat load on the optical systems by reflecting only visible radiation

Hot, cold and laser mirror are used for numerous applications in varied industries such as microelectronics and displays, semiconductor, military, automotive, aerospace, medical, biomedical and scientific R&D. Most reputed manufactures provide customized optics and coatings for a wide variety of optical industrial sectors.

The Use and Features of Laser Window in the Industry

Lasers plays an important role in most of the modern devices. From small laser printers used in offices to advanced industrial lasers for drilling precise hole in the sheet of steel, it is useful in varied industrial applications. The power of a laser depends on the material used for producing it. It is also popularly used in making optical components for various industries. They provide a high degree of transmission of specified wavelengths in laser applications or safety products. They prove to be very effective in providing safe and observable surface in safety applications. They play an important role in safeguarding work areas or sensitive components by deflecting harmful laser beams.

Most manufacturers use substrates, coatings, or a combination of both for transmitting specific wavelengths or ranges of wavelengths. Laser window is also used for reflecting or absorbing all other wavelengths in the laser beam. Hence laser transmissions can be optimized by transmitting only the wanted wavelengths.Laser line windows are used available for higher energy laser applications. Most manufacturers offer several varieties of laser windows for laser transmission and laser blocking applications. It is recommended to look for well-known manufacturers to buy high quality laser window for varied industrial applications.

All About Laser Windows

We use the windows in optical systems to shield the lenses from dust, dirt, and pollution. Some of the key reasons for using the Laser Window in optical systems are very high transmission, low absorption along with low wave front distortion.

The laser windows are used for various purposes across the world. Some of the applications of laser windows are as follows:

High power laser
Material processing such as welding
Lends protection after the focusing head
Solid-state laser, and much more

Some of the perks associated with using these are mentioned below:

Customized design
You get high-quality consistency
The high laser damage threshold
Low scratch-dig
And, low roughness

All these advantages make it a perfect pick for optical manufacturers.

Laser Safety Viewing Windows

The laser safety viewing windows are primarily used for getting protection from the lasers. They are extremely good for use in enclosures, walls, glove boxes, and windows. They are available in different types of material, such as acrylic laser windows, glass laser windows, custom laser windows, and low-level laser windows.

Note that these are not intended to replace any laser protective eyewear, such as laser glasses or other laser safety products that maybe required.

Applications of Germanium

Germanium is an extremely hard and high-density material. These properties of Germanium make it perfect in places where robustness is needed.

Germanium is also heavy due to its high-density property which makes it a good choice when designing it into optical systems where weight is an important factor.

Along with that, a Germanium Window has a broad transmission range and therefore, are perfect for the IR applications. Another very important feature of Germanium is its thermal runaway. This implies that its transmissive properties will decrease with the increase in temperature.

Let us have a look at the some of the application and areas where these are used:

Amplifier slabs, discs as well as rods
Laser fusion optics
Reference surfaces
Defence or Aerospace
Industrial OEM
Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
Debris shields, and many others

In our day to day life, we can find Germanium begin used in different products that we use. To name a few, you can find germanium in camera lenses, semiconductors, alloys, fluorescent lamps, and many other products. They are also used in in-phase memory chips which have replaced the flash memory in many electronic devices due to their energy-saving benefits.

Significant Uses & benefits of Optical Lenses

Optical science affects almost every aspect of our lives. From the night vision equipment o lasers used in surgery to satellite surveillance, optical methods are being used in multitude of applications and constant research is being conducted to us the optical methods to facilitate its continued technical development. Optical Lenses primarily helps to focus or diverge light. These lenses may be consist of a single or multiple elements.

Optical Lenses are used in a diverse range of industry applications varying from microscopy to laser processing. They are often used in life sciences, imaging, industrial, or defense. There are many manufacturers of optical components providing an extensive selection of stock optical lenses such as spherical, achromatic, aspheric, and cylindrical lenses, both with and without anti reflection coatings deposited on the surfaces. These lenses are available in a variety of substrates such as N-BK7, UV fused silica, calcium fluoride, magnesium fluoride, zinc selenide, germanium, and silicon. Each Lense is used for different application as per its characteristics. For instance, chromatic Lenses are ideal for applications requiring color correction, while Aspheric Lenses are designed to correct spherical aberration. Similarly, Germanium or Silicon Lenses are used for transmitting the Infrared spectrum, while Fused Silica is idea for the Ultraviolet (UV) applications.

IPL Therapy: A new approach to improve your skin color and texture without surgery

IPL is an acronym for intense pulsed light. It is basically a light therapy which is used for the cosmetic treatment of various vascular injuries, unwanted hair, wrinkles, age spots, freckles, rosacea and pigmentation lesions. IPL is somewhat similar to a laser treatment. In laser treatment, a laser emits just one wavelength of light at your skin, whereas IPL releases light of many different wavelengths, similar to a photo flash. The expansive wavelength range discharged from an IPL light device generates simultaneous emission of green, yellow, red and infrared wavelengths which permits various chromospheres to be aimed synchronously.

The difference here lies between the two technologies is the light from IPL is more scattered and less focused than a laser. IPL therapy is considered a non-ablative resurfacing technique and it causes less damage to the skin as it infiltrates to the second layer of the skin which is known as dermis without harming the top layer of the skin which is known as epidermis. IPL light guide can be used anywhere on your body, but it is not recommended on uneven areas, on raised keloid marks, on darker skin tones and on light hair.

IPL is one of the most popular devices for skin rejuvenation as the cost of purchase and maintenance is normally lower than a laser. The technology utilizes a range of filters of visible and invisible light energy and is known as high energy broad spectrum light emitting device.