Organizations Develop Molded Aspheres

Edmund Optics Inc. of Barrington, N.J., has formed a cooperative agreement with Clemson University in South Carolina and with the US Army Benét Laboratories at the Watervliet Arsenal in Albany, N.Y. The entities will collaborate on a three-year program titled “Molded Aspheric and Essential System Assembly Technology,” which is designed to find a suitable approach for molding aspheric lenses in the US. The goal is to use finite element analysis models to predict specific tool geometry and final lens surface figure. The lenses have applications in a variety of military products, including night-vision goggles.