Ross Optical Blog: The Latest News & Research

Jeremy’s personal interests in science and technology merge with his professional strengths across sales, service, and operations to develop solutions to our customers’ challenges. See what drives Jeremy in his role at Ross.

Summer Hours 

In order to give our employees well-deserved time with their families this summer, our summer hours begin on Monday, June 7th, 2021. Regular business hours will resume on Tuesday, September 7th. 

The optical lens market is large and expects to see ongoing significant growth over the coming years, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.87 worldwide by 2027. One of the key areas of market expansion is Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology. For many applications, LiDAR devices provide benefits compared to other sensing technologies, such as RF-based short to long range radar, ultrasonic sensors, and infrared sensors. The increasing availability of components designed for LiDAR technology is enabling broader capabilities and more competitive pricing, lending it to a variety of applications that require high performance in a compact package with high reliability and relatively low cost.

Ross Optical’s acquisition by Precision Optics Corporation adds new capabilities to our portfolio with micro-optics down to sub-millimeter sizes. Products and systems requiring optical surfaces less than 2 mm in diameter often result in a trade-off, sacrificing either quality, price, or supply.

Machine vision is a technology that enables automated devices to "see." Machine vision systems combine optics and mechanics to create tools that can adjust optics in real-time to perform inspections and aid robotic systems. In our increasingly automated world, machine vision has become an essential component in manufacturing, farming, robotics, and many other areas. Quality optical components are critical to the function of machine vision systems. Optical systems for machine vision may involve high quality fixed focal length lenses, telecentric, or adjustable lens systems (zoom or liquid lenses).

Ball lenses are highly transparent spheres made with optical glass. Some of the earliest microscope lenses — developed by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek — relied on surface tension to form small spheres from melted glass. These lenses achieved magnifications as large as 275x and were as small as 1.5 mm in diameter.¹ However, since ball lenses can cause spherical aberrations and typically have to be apertured to exclude non-paraxial rays when used for imaging,  they are often replaced with different geometries, such as aspheric lenses, in microscopes today. Modern technologies involve using ball lenses to couple light between optical fibers or to focus light from a diode laser into a fiber optic. Ball lenses are commonly used in barcode scanning, optical sensing, and endoscopy.

Surface roughness is a measure of high-frequency deviations in the departure of a surface from ideal. Surface roughness can result in unwanted scattering in an optical system and for many optical applications one might think it is always best to minimize surface roughness. However, simply minimizing surface roughness without regard to system wavelength and performance can result in increased costs and longer production times. When choosing specifications for a particular optical component, it is important to consider the function of the component in the context of the entire optical system in which it will be used. A careful analysis of the role surface roughness plays in a system can avoid unnecessary production costs due to over-specification. For example, a 10 Angstrom RMS surface roughness can impact a system operating in the visible region more significantly than a system operating in the mid or far infrared.

Keep in mind that a human hair is about 100 um (0.100 mm) diameter! When most people think about specifying micro-optics (< 1 mm in size), they assume they are just very small versions of standard optical components and all the manufacturing methods and specifications are the same. This is not the case! Modern manufacturing techniques for larger optics have evolved to the point where you typically do not have to think much about them when designing an optical system and many of the potential manufacturing issues are no longer considered. In the realm of micro-optics, many of the old limitations and considerations still apply.