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Op To Mech Design Tutorial
Op To Mech Design Tutorial
DESIGN
IN FIVE EASY
LESSONS
The development of
practical optical systems
requires careful
optomechanical design.
By Paul Yoder Jr.
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Material Decisions
The choice of materials is critical to the performance and
cost of a system. Choose the wrong materials and your system wont meet spec. Choose overly exotic materials and
your system may meet spec but it wont matter because it
may be cost prohibitive. In general, designers should
choose optical glasses designated by the manufacturer as
preferred types. These are usually easier (and cheaper) to
process in the optical shop and are most likely to be available for future production.
When a variety of materials with otherwise acceptable
properties is available, the choice may well be made on the
basis of density because that tends to reduce total weight of
the instrument. Insofar as possible, match the coefficients of
thermal expansion (CTEs) of materials used in connected
mechanical and optical parts to minimize differential expansion or contraction in the event of temperature changes.
Low-expansion materials such as ULE (Corning Inc.;
Corning, NY) or Zerodur (Schott Glass; Duryea, PA) may
prove the best choice for mirror substrates. Aluminum is the
most frequently used metal for structures, but in some cases
stainless steels, titanium, or Invar may provide more advantageous CTEs.
Specify the heat treatment of critical metal parts after
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Mentored to Mentor,
Yoder Keeps the Faith
aul Yoder's remarkable career was nurtured early by his physicist father and other
important mentors. Today he continues the
cycle by sharing his knowledge in many different
settings. Yoders father was head of the physics
department at Juniata College (Huntingdon,
PA). Yoder followed suit, earning a BS in
physics from Juniata in 1947 before going on
to an MS in physics at Penn State University
(University Park, PA).
At Penn State, David Rank, head of the universitys
spectroscopy lab, introduced the young physicist to the
emerging field of military precision optics as then spearheaded at the Frankford Arsenal (Philadelphia, PA),
where Rank had been a consultant. After graduation,
Yoder spent 10 years at Frankford, designing and manufacturing optical instruments.
After Frankford, Yoders career began to be best
expressed as a sum that was greater than its constituent parts. Yoder spent 25 years with Perkin-Elmer
Corp. (Norwalk, CT), rising to assistant to the director of
research for the multinational company. After immersing
himself in military and aerospace applications, Yoder
turned his talents to serving the medical community by
co-founding Taunton Technologies, which pioneered vision
correction by laser corneal recontouring and later
became VISX Corp. (Santa Clara, CA).
Beyond his business success, Yoder has spent much
of his career ensuring that the optical community that
gave him his start would continue to thrive. Yoder is a fellow of both SPIE and OSA, a member of Sigma Xi, and
received the Directors Award from SPIE in 1996, the
Engineering Excellence Award from OSA in 1997, and
the George W. Goddard Award from SPIE in 1999.
Yoder has also completed the cycle of mentored-to-mentor by organizing symposia at SPIE and OSA on optical
engineering and optomechanical design, teaching graduate optics courses at the University of Connecticut
(Storrs, CT), and conducting dozens of short courses and
guest lectures around the world. He has also fostered
the ongoing development of his craft by authoring more
than 60 papers and some of the most prominent texts
used today on optomechanical design. Winn Hardin
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surface and oriented such that the force vectors pass directly
through the optic to reference pads on the other sides of the
optic. Flat pads touching flat surfaces on the optic must be
lapped coplanar prior to assembly.
Support larger mirrors at multiple points around their
rims and on their backs to minimize gravitational distortions
at all elevation angles of the line of sight. Typical mount configurations include Hindle-type mounts using multiple levers
and arrays of pneumatic/hydraulic actuators. Multiple-point
supports deliver forces as needed to support the localized portion of the mirrors weight at the support points.
SPIE
Member
Further Reading
1. D. OShea, Selected Papers on Optomechanical Design, SPIE
Milestone Series vol. 770, SPIE Press, Bellingham, WA (1988).
2. P. Yoder Jr., Opto-mechanical Systems Design, 2nd Edition, Marcel
Dekker Inc., New York, NY (1992).
3. D. Vukobratovich, Optomechanical System Design, Ch. 3 in The
Infrared & Electro-Optical Systems Handbook, M. Dudzik, ed., ERIM,
Ann Arbor, MI, and SPIE Press, Bellingham, WA (1993).
4. P. Yoder Jr., Mounting Optical Components, Ch. 37 in OSA
Handbook of Optics, 2nd edition, vol. I, M. Bass, ed., McGraw-Hill
Inc., New York, NY (1995).
5. A. Ahmad, ed., Handbook of Optomechanical Engineering, CRC
Press, Boca Raton, FL (1997).
6. P. Yoder Jr., ed., Optomechanical Design, SPIE Selected Papers on
CD-ROM, vol. 5 (1999).
7. P. Yoder Jr., Mounting Optics in Optical Instruments, SPIE Press,
Bellingham, WA (2002).