At the grand opening of the new production site, Patrick Paul, general manager at LASER COMPONENTS GmbH, had this to say: "LASER COMPONENTS stands for innovation and decisiveness. Expert technical advice, short delivery times, and maximum flexibility are, for us, the main criteria in achieving complete customer satisfaction. For this reason, last year we decided to expand our in-house optics manufacturing capability and capacity."
The beginning of last year saw an increase in supply shortages; a solution that would eliminate this problem had to be found. With the acquisition of additional space at the company headquarters, we came to a decision relatively quickly. Within just a few months we acquired the machinery necessary to enhance manufacture of laser-quality lenses.
Where will this all lead?
Our goal is clear: High quality at short delivery times. Within ten business days of placing an order, customized lenses will be ready for delivery. During each step of the process, quality is our top priority. The surface figure error specifications are 3/0.5 (0.2/0.1).
Each side of the lens goes through several production steps - from coarse grinding to fine finishing to a finer finishing and then the first polishing. After polishing the lens surface has a very good surface figure and the surface roughness is approximately 0.5 nm.
The results are checked using an interferometer. If the surface figure error of the lens has to meet particularly high standards, the substrate can further be processed through fine polishing using a QED. The surface figure error is then reduced to a minimum - the result shown in Figure 2 was measured with an interferometer. At just 0.3 nm, the surface roughness achieved after QED processing is excellent.
Cleaning
After both sides of the lens are processed, it is then cleaned. In order to make the cleaning process as efficient as possible, we purchased an ultrasonic cleaning system in which both un-/loading and handling inside the machine are fully automatic. The lenses undergo a nine-step cleaning process with both diluted and 100% chemical solutions before they are dried under infrared light.
Product Range
Whether they are plano-concave, plano-convex, biconcave, or biconvex, all lens types with a diameter of 12 mm to 60 mm can be manufactured. The radii can be almost arbitrarily chosen and range from 12 mm to infinity. Both optical glasses and different types of fused silica can be processed in high quality.
Coating
LASER COMPONENTS has made a name for itself manufacturing coatings since 1986. Flexibility and quality have become a valuable trademark. LASER COMPONENTS’ comprehensive repertoire ranges from AR coatings to partially-reflective coatings, from long pass, short pass, and conventional mirror coatings to Gaussian mirrors, metallic mirrors, and even polarizers.
