Product category:
Materials and components
News Release from: Optical Surfaces | Subject: Etalon pairs
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 14 May 2003
Precision components for optical filters
Optical Surfaces is a key component supplier to Scientific Solutions for its award winning NIR high-resolution liquid-crystal Fabry-Perot etalon.
Optical Surfaces is a key component supplier to Scientific Solutions for its award winning NIR high-resolution liquid-crystal Fabry-Perot etalon (HR-LCFP), a next-generation tunable optical filter optimised for use in the near infra-red Using proprietary manufacturing techniques in a thermally stable production environment has enabled Optical Surfaces to routinely supply batches of fused silica etalon pairs with industry leading accuracy to Scientific Solutions
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 8 Jun 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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The demanding specifications required of the etalon pairs, to deliver the high performance of the HR-LCFP, was better than lambda/200 matching accuracy and surface roughness of less than 1nm.
The HR-LCFP provides a solid-state, tunable interferometer whose plate parallelism is fixed at the time of manufacture, yet maintains tunability over several orders of interference with a narrow bandpass and arbitrary resonant gap size.
The device uses a thin liquid-crystal cell in its resonant cavity formed by the highly polished etalon substrates.
The refractive index between the substrates is altered by varying an electric field across the liquid crystal.
The novel technology incorporated in the HR-LCFP allows rapid, precise and highly stable spectral selection.
Because the HR-LCFP is frequency agile, it enables nearly simultaneous measurement of multiple wavelengths in the NIR region.
Current applications for the HR-LCFP include laser tuning, lidar and narrowband spectral imaging.
Future use is expected in spectroscopic, telecommunications and spaceborne sensing applications.
From its ISO9001-approved production facility Optical Surfaces is able to deliver pairs of precisely matched etalons up to 150mm diameter with matching accuracies to lambda/300 with ring or optically contacted spacers.
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