OPT 443 -- OPTICAL FABRICATION AND TESTING TECHNOLOGY
This laboratory and lecture course is designed to give a firsthand working knowledge of optical glasses, their properties, and the methods for fabricating and characterizing high quality glass surfaces and components. Lectures will emphasize the physical and optical properties of glass, methods for manufacturing glasses, the component finishing process (grinding and polishing), cleaning, finished element specification, chemical durability and optical quality evaluation methods. New glasses and their applications in laser systems and nonlinear optics will be described.
The laboratory is designed to expose the student to several varieties of optical glasses, the methods for cold working glass blanks, and the fabrication and testing of selected optical elements. Hands-on activity with grinding and polishing equipment will be required to complete one of a variety of projects. In addition to using standard test fixtures and reference standards, to evaluate their work as it progresses, each student will learn the fundamentals of interferometric testing and data interpretation, and methods for evaluating surface smoothness via noncontact, optical profilometry. An introduction, by demonstration, to continuous polishing and optical contacting techniques will be provided during the laboratory portion of the course.

Enrollment: 12 students maximum (priority to graduate Optics students).
Text: Instructor’s notes, 450 pages provided to students in a 3-ring binder cost.

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