PO Box 2556 Batesville, AR 72503-2556 United States
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+1 870-698-1881
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+1 870-698-1880
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公司简介
The LaCroix name is synonymous with quality precision optics. Since 1947, three generations of family leadership have placed LaCroix Precision Optics as one of the premier independent precision optical manufacturers in America.
Spherical Lenses
Spherical lenses have at least one surface with a constant radius of curvature. There are two categories of spherical lenses: Convex (Converging) lens and Concave (Diverging) lens.
Converging (Positive) Lenses
Diverging (Negative) Lenses
The manufacturing process of spherical lenses begins with a quote created by a Manufacturing Engineer. The Manufacturing Engineer then designs and orders a near-net-shape optical glass blank. The optical glass blanks are then delivered to the production line once we receive the material. Once we process the order, the first step is to have diamond ring tools to generate the radius into the glass blank. A series of progressively smaller grit diamond wheels or loose abrasive material is then used to grind the lens blank finely. Finally, the polishing process uses pitch or polyurethane pads and a cerium oxide slurry to finish the spherical lens surface. The finished spherical lenses are then either shipped to the customer or retained in the facilities for further treatment with processes such as custom coatings and truncations.
At LaCroix Precision Optics, our vast inventory of conventional and CNC production equipment allows the freedom to manufacture your lens designs most efficiently and cost-effectively.
Achromats can come in various shapes and sizes and serve a wide variety of practical applications, such as correcting chromatic aberrations. LaCroix Precision Optics has specialized in manufacturing and assembling thousands of achromatic lenses every week, including triplets and aspheric achromats.
Standard Lens
Achromatic Doublet
The process of creating achromatic lenses starts with a quote generated by a Manufacturing Engineer. The right optical glass material is then ordered and sent to the production line. While in production, the crown and flint lenses are manufactured separately in a typical fashion. The crown is convex and is made using lower-dispersion material while the flint is typically concave and utilizes relatively higher dispersion material. Once we manufacture the various lenses, they are aligned in both the optical and mechanical axis and cemented together using a specialized index-specific optical cement. The optical cement is then cured using UV light. After assembly, some of the doublets are centered to the final diameter while others are pre-centered before cementing. Doublets can also be blackened after assembly to reduce scattering, which can be beneficial in some optical applications.
LaCroix Manufacturing Engineers will work with our Production Technicians to optimize the manufacturing process to utilize a combination of CNC and conventional manufacturing methods. Special proprietary alignment devices are used to ensure the optical axis of the different elements can be maintained to within seconds.
Aspheric lenses have at least one surface defined by an aspheric equation that has a fluctuating local radius across the diameter of the part. As a result, this creates an optical lens with a non-constant radius around the sphere.
LaCroix Manufacturing Engineers will analyze your print and aspheric lens design. They will match the sag table provided with the print to verify the correct custom aspheric lens is being manufactured. When sending a sag table and aspheric terms, do not truncate the vertex radius, conic constant, or any of the aspheric terms as we will not be able to match and verify your aspheric sag table.
Aspheric Lenses v. Spherical Lenses
The manufacturing process of aspheric lenses begins by designing a near-net shape optical glass blank. To generate a best-fit sphere into the aspheric lens blank, an initial rough grind using a diamond ring tool is used. A series of progressively smaller grit diamond tools are then used to sub-aperture grind the aspheric prescription into the part.
LaCroix utilizes highly specialized CNC grinding technology to minimize mid-spatial frequency errors.
Once the optical lens is sufficiently ground, aspheric lenses are then initially polished to remove all subsurface damage induced in the grinding process. An iterative feedback loop is initialized by taking measurements with either a profilometer or utilizing 3D aspheric metrology on all aspheric lenses. This measurement is fed back to the aspheric polisher for a correction run. This process is repeated until form, and slope error specifications are met.
Technology
LaCroix Precision Optics is dedicated to maintaining state-of-the-art machinery and has recently made significant investments in the latest innovative aspheric technology. View our Advanced Processing page to learn more.
Optical flats are optical elements with two parallel planar surfaces, while wedges are optical elements that have two planar surfaces with one face angled in comparison to the other. Below are illustrations of the optics described above.
Optical Flat
Wedge
As with all other custom optics, the start of the manufacturing process for optical windows and wedges is the generation of a quote by a Manufacturing Engineer for a particular window or wedge. After this, near-net shape, optical glass blanks are ordered and sent to the production line. Planar parts will be processed in one of two ways: single-sided with multiple parts blocked on flat tools or double-sided using specialized machines that process both sides at once. In both cases an oversized blank will be generated, fine ground, then polished. Coming off the pitch lap, the finished surface will be protected and the second surface will be processed. Parts off the double-sided polisher will continue through the plant for further processing. Optical Wedges will follow the conventional path and will have the angle induced during the generating process. Precision tooling supplied by our in-house tool room makes this possible. Finally, the custom optical window or wedge will either be sent to the customer or retained in the facilities for further treatment with processes such as custom coatings and truncations.
LaCroix Manufacturing Engineers will work with our Production Technicians to optimize the manufacturing process to utilize a combination of CNC and conventional manufacturing methods. Special proprietary alignment devices are used to ensure the optical axis of the different elements can be maintained within seconds.
Prisms are used to manipulate a beam or image in an optical system. The number of polished surfaces and the angular displacement between them is system dependent. Our Prisms & Beam Splitters are used to reflect or refract light at precise angles. They are made from an optical glass such as filter glass or fused silica and can be coated to your exact specifications.
Our standard angular accuracies begin at 3' and can reach less than or equal to 1'. Check out our tolerance chart below to see the various surface and dimensional tolerances we can achieve.
Optical PrismCube Beam Splitter
After a quote is generated by one of the Manufacturing Engineers for the particular prism or beam splitter, near net shape, optical glass blanks are ordered and sent to the production line. The blank will be blocked to a tool and sent to generation, where it will be ground into a closer shape after generation comes fine grinding, which includes grinding the prisms more precisely to reach the order's specifications. Finally, the optical prism will be polished on all desired surfaces. The prisms will either be sent out to the customer or retained in the facilities for further treatment with processes such as custom coatings and truncations. For a beam splitter, two prisms follow the outline above, are coated, matched together, then cemented.
