Ross Optical Blog: The Latest News & Research

Stock image, Claudio Ventrella

Have you ever tried to take a picture of a bright full moon or a star-filled sky, only to be disappointed when virtually nothing shows up on your phone screen? The distance and brightness of these objects make it nearly impossible to get a sharp image—and that’s just in our own galaxy.

There's nothing wrong with sourcing optical parts from overseas. We frequently do it ourselves. However, working with vendors on another continent has its risks, and when things go wrong, they tend to go really wrong. Problems include:

Over the last several years, Ross Optical has worked closely with the engineering and purchasing team at Microtrac to provide custom optics that support their particle analysis instruments.

SPIE Optics + Photonics (O+P) is coming up in San Diego, California, the week of August 6. The optics industry changes quickly, and O+P is a prime place to catch up on the latest developments across the field, with an even mix of technological innovations and applications.

Opto-mechanics refers to the mechanical design of optical systems. Opto-mechanical design is sometimes dismissed as little more than "wrapping metal" around the optics, but that perspective is detrimental to building the best operating optical instrument.

Kanban, a method used to visualize and optimize workflows, has long been a key part of Ross' processes. Kanban has 5 core properties: (1) visualize workflow, (2) limit work-in-progress, (3) manage flow, (4) make process policies explicit, and (5) improve collaboratively. At Ross, we help you with 3–5 so that you can focus on 1 and 2. When managing and delivering optics inventory to customers, we aim to:

A “glass map” is often the first tool in optical design. The map is a quick way to determine a suitable range of optical materials in terms of refractive index (n) and dispersion (“Abbe number”, “nu number”, or “V-number”). Finding the ideal region on the glass map is only the first step, though. Several “non-optical” factors must be balanced to determine which materials are most promising. We’ll consider 5 of the most important.

Erika has been with Ross Optical for 7 years. From our quality management system to our thorough optical inspection process, Erika helps ensure that our products meet customer requirements as well as our own high quality standards.

Because cylindrical and spherical optics both have circular profiles when viewed end-on, it is a common misconception that identical production methods apply to both. Both methods do use similar principles of grinding and polishing, but there are a number of very important differences. Here are three of the most significant areas of difference.

For years, Ross Optical has been supplying catalog cylinders and optical cylinder sets to customers in laser diode, measurement instrumentation, and other industries. While cylinders are used in a broad range of applications, we are seeing the most recent demand for their use in line generators.