Molded Plastic Optics

Single Point Diamond Turning Our expertise in diffractive and refractive optics has placed AOS at the forefront of the industry.

AOS’s Single-Point Diamond Turning (SPDT) lathes produce superior optical surface finishes and consistent performance in plastic and metals. The SPDT process is used to fabricate optical components and also to machine the optical surface on the inserts used in the molding process.

The SPDT process can fabricate small quantities of custom optical prototypes prior to production molding the optics.

Apollo Optical Systems currently has three Single Point Diamond Turning lathes: Two Precitech Optimum 2400 two axis lathes and one three axis Precitech Nanoform 200 lathe (for manufacturing asymmetrical components).

AOS has custom proprietary diamond tools with radii as small as 1.5 micron.

AOS produces optical components ranging from 1 mm to 300 mm in diameter.

AOS has achieved better than the typical finishes in all materials. For example AOS has achieved a 13 Å RMS surface finish in Nickel for a specific customer and 31 Å RMS surface finish in Polystyrene for another customer.

AOS typically achieves 60-80 Å RMS surface finish and < ½ wave peak-to-valley surface figure in most polymers. Apollo Optical typically achieves 30-50 Å RMS surface finish and < ¼ wave peak-to-valley surface figure in metals.

What can we do for you?

AOS routinely diamond turns optics from the following materials; plastic (Acrylic, Styrene, Zeonex, Zeonor, Ultem), Nickel, Brass, Copper, Aluminum and many other materials.

AOS Single Point Diamond Turning is capable of machining the following types of optical surfaces:

Conics

Diffractive Fresnel Toroidal Aspheric Spheres Plano Single Point Diamond Turning – Quality from beginning to end From our initial discussions with our customers, through delivery, quality is always our main concern.

Our Single Point Diamond Turning center is supported by the latest AOS metrology. Our knowledge and extensive experience of optical design and metrology allows us to perform complete characterization of all our SPDT optical components and molding inserts.

AOS has an extensive in-house design and testing infrastructure to support its Single Point Diamond Turning services. Support capabilities include:

Optical Engineering Surface Modeling Lens Design AOS uses proprietary software in combination with commercial mechanical design software (DIFFSYS®) to create the SPDT tool path.

Optical Testing Interferometers to measure surface figure Contact Profilometer to measure surface figure and diffractive or Fresnel features White Light Interferometer to measure surface roughness and diffractive or Fresnel features AOS is vertically integrated with Optical and Mechanical Engineering, SPDT, Optical Molding, Metrology and Testing, all of which are performed in-house.

Our expertise in SPDT and molding has placed AOS at the forefront of the optics industry.