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Property Management: A Review of Optical Materials

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Lynn Savage, [email protected]

Optical materials are as old as the natural quartz and obsidian crystals early civilizations used to change the way people saw the world. Artificial materials came later, with mirrors and other optics produced following the growth of art glass in Egypt, India and China. Today, the prospects for choosing the perfect material to make lenses for endoscopes and cameras, beam shapers for laser systems, or segments of a giant telescope mirror are wide-ranging and often daunting, even for seasoned pros. In general, optical materials can be broken down into categories, such as transmissivity vs....Read full article

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    Published: September 2011
    Glossary
    fused silica
    Glass consisting of almost pure silicon dioxide (SiO2). Also called vitreous silica. Frequently used in optical fibers and windows.
    glass
    A noncrystalline, inorganic mixture of various metallic oxides fused by heating with glassifiers such as silica, or boric or phosphoric oxides. Common window or bottle glass is a mixture of soda, lime and sand, melted and cast, rolled or blown to shape. Most glasses are transparent in the visible spectrum and up to about 2.5 µm in the infrared, but some are opaque such as natural obsidian; these are, nevertheless, useful as mirror blanks. Traces of some elements such as cobalt, copper and...
    hardness
    In the most general sense, the resistance of a solid surface to damage.
    pyrex
    Trade name for a type of borosilicate glass manufactured by Corning Glass Works, noted for its low coefficient of thermal expansion. Used most often for mirror blanks; not suitable for light transmission.
    reflective
    The term reflective is an adjective that describes the ability of a surface or material to reflect light or other forms of radiation. It implies the capability of bouncing back or redirecting incident light waves. The reflective property is often quantified by the reflectivity or reflectance, which is the ratio of reflected light intensity to the incident light intensity. Key points about the term reflective: Surface property: When a surface is described as reflective, it means that the...
    si
    Systeme Internationale d'Unites, the international metric system of units.
    telescope
    An afocal optical device made up of lenses or mirrors, usually with a magnification greater than unity, that renders distant objects more distinct, by enlarging their images on the retina.
    transmissivity
    The internal transmittance per unit thickness of a nondiffusing material.
    zerodur
    Zerodur is a type of glass ceramic material known for its exceptional thermal and mechanical properties, particularly its low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) close to zero. It was developed by Schott AG, a German glass manufacturer, in the 1960s. The name Zerodur is derived from its properties: "zero" refers to its nearly zero thermal expansion, and "dur" stands for durability. This combination of properties makes zerodur highly suitable for applications requiring dimensional...
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