Optical Surfaces Ltd. has developed a new, modular approach that enables simple set-up of a larger diameter beam expander assembly aligned to your optical experiment. These pre-aligned modules enable researchers to undertake a complex 5 degrees of freedom set-up in a matter of minutes rather than days or even weeks.
Traditionally, beam expanders have come as complete, pre-aligned, mounted, optical systems in an enclosure. While this approach provides a good beam expansion solution for optics up to 200 mm. in diameter, above this, an enclosed system solution becomes too large, too heavy, and too expensive. Drawing upon decades of designing and making high performance optical beam expanders — Optical Surfaces pre-aligned modules offer a time, space, and cost saving solution for beam expansion for optics up to 500 mm. in diameter.
The modular beam expander assembly components supplied by Optical Surfaces include mounted primary and secondary mirrors that come pre-set to the “correct” positions for experiments, relative to a 25×25 mm., M6, standard optical table hole-pattern — both mirrors rotation will be factory pre-aligned and fixed.
Each customer will receive their beam expander mounted mirror modules with all freedoms of movement fixed giving you a very accurate start for alignment. Together with these mounted and fully pre-aligned pairs, three reference stops are supplied with each mount. These reference stops are precision machined to the exact diameters corresponding to the pre-aligned system in its finally fixed positions.
The exact relative coordinates of the stop positions in relation to the M6 standard optical table hole-pattern for each modular beam expander are provided by Optical Surfaces. These reference stops reduce the required installation and alignment time to an absolute minimum. Any final tweaking adjustments necessary are typically minor if needed at all.
A high precision reference flat is included with each customer specified modular beam expander enabling quick and easy alignment to your optical experiment.