Personnel
Our technical staff of engineers, scientists, and technicians combines years of experience, a broad knowledge base, and a command of the craft involved in producing precision interference filters.
Omega Optical’s engineering services are founded on years of technical experience, proprietary software, and custom instruments for optical measurement. Involving us in the early stages of conception is important in order to maximize the design process, and to minimize the project’s overall cost.
Our goal is to play a collaborative role in your projects within the Life Science, Industrial, Commercial, Astronomy, Defense and Aerospace markets.
Design
Thin-Films
- Thin-Film proprietary design software
- TF CALC
- Optilayer
- FilmStar
- The Essential Macleod
Instrumentation
- Optical Raytrace software
- Mechanical CAD packages
- Instrumentation interface tools such as LabView and Python
Other
- Chemical modeling with Hyperchem
- Matlab
- Mathematica
Manufacturing
We have the capacity to coat a full range of materials, from metals and fluorides to hard oxides and semiconductors. A number of our coating systems employ physical vapor deposition (PVD with thermal sources or electron-beams) with or without ion assist (IAD) and substrate heating. Dual-magnetron sputtering for prototyping and plasma-assisted reactive magnetron sputtering capabilities (PARMS) are also available in our highest capacity coating chambers. Monitoring of the coating process is performed optically or with quartz-crystal monitors to ensure accuracy in our processes. The computer-controlled PARMS systems are also capable of realizing Rugate and co-sputtered designs. No single technology is ideal for every application. As a world-class manufacturer, Omega Optical knows the attributes and limitation of each and utilizes multiple technologies to achieve the best results at a reasonable cost.
Optical Fabrication
Omega’s Optics shop is crucial to many steps in the manufacturing process. Raw (rough sawn) glass plates are ground and polished to the desired thickness with state-of-the-art flat optic surfacing capability; SPEEDFAM 16B-5 lapper and double-sided polisher. These machines have the ability to quickly process large quantities of optical glass with high precision. For small lots or specialty substrates, we have spindle, double planetary and high-speed polishers. Plates are checked for flatness with certified optical flats before proceeding to the coating steps.
After coating, the parts are either scribed and broken or cut to size with diamond-tooled machines including CNC drills, shapers, and saws, along with cylindrical grinders and Mildex surfacers for desired edge treatments. Our fully equipped machine shop produces custom filter rings, wheels, and holders as well as holders used during the deposition process. Filter components are cleaned ultrasonically and assembled under laminar flow hoods. We also have laser and ink marking capabilities for the addition of part numbers or alignment marks on individual pieces. Our final assembly department is adept at lamination of individual components onto coverglasses or into rings or assemblies.