Ross Optical Blog: The Latest News & Research

The annual SPIE Photonics West conference in San Francisco set new attendance records. More than 22,000 people met to discuss the latest in light-based science and engineering, and the exhibition hall, featuring 1,345 companies, sold out months in advance. The BiOS, LASE, and OPTO conferences were the place to learn about the latest photonics R&D.

It’s winning the game that matters, not the individual players. A manager can spend a fortune to get all the very best players, but if they don’t work well together, the team won’t consistently win. Similarly, in optics, it is the system performance that matters, not every single component. Here are two instances when choosing the right kind of “imperfect” optics provides winning performance and a safer supply chain.

Thanks to you, 2016 was a year of steady growth, and we are excited for what’s to come in 2017. Our new customers last year shared similar challenges before coming to Ross, and it was our ability to work with them that made the difference. These common optics supply chain challenges included:

Dirty optics are trouble. They diminish performance, and in high-energy systems, they can even cause physical damage. Plus, well...they just plain look bad. When faced with an unsightly smudge or bit of dirt, it’s tempting to buff it off with the nearest piece of Kleenex. More likely than not, if you do that, you’re going to end up with a dirty, damaged optic. So, put down that handkerchief. Here are five things you need to know before you touch any optical surface.

For better or worse, we do “judge a book by its cover.” Appearance can override our better judgment. It’s tempting to judge the quality of an optical element based on its appearance, but that overlooks the element’s role within the overall optical system. In this article we’ll consider three types of surface irregularities and explore how each type can affect optical performance.

There is more to optical design than designing the optics. A design that works on a computer screen may not work in real life. Here are four best practices to help you design for manufacturability and performance.

According to the results of our 2016 customer satisfaction survey, Ross Optical continues to excel in optical quality, technical support, and customer service, and other areas. We’ve recently added staff and made other efforts to improve, and we were pleased to see that 94% of customers gave us an overall rating of excellent or above average. 97% of customers rated us excellent or above average on the friendliness and helpfulness of our customer service team. See what customers have to say about us below, and scroll further to find our latest resources to help customers succeed.

We asked Lisa Yang, Chief Technology Officer at Ross Optical, to share a bit about how she got into the field of optics and the work she does now.

Do other optics suppliers think you’re weird for wanting large lenses? We don’t.

As more and more optical suppliers consolidate and streamline their businesses, few continue to carry large diameter lenses. This is problematic because large diameter optics remain critical for precision instruments such as telescopes and imagers.  

3 Reasons to Reverse Engineer

“Reverse engineering” is a term with a bad reputation. It calls to mind patent violations and expensive legal wranglings. There are legitimate situations, though, when a company might need to work backwards to design an optical component that matches the performance of a commercial item.