NES/OSA

Recipients

2009 - Mark Kahan
2006 - William Plummer
2005 - Stephen Fantone

Description of the Award

The Award is presented to a individual who, in the judgment of the Executive Council has made a sustained and substantial contribution to the optics community in New England. Such contributions may be in the form of technical advances, managerial/business leadership, or service to the community.

Enabling high-performance optical fabrication with sub-aperture finishing and stitching interferometry

Commercially available sub-aperture polishing and measurement technologies have changed the landscape of precision optics manufacturing. Such developments have enabled the production of higher precision and more complex optics with increasingly difficult figure requirements. Magnetorheological Finishing (MRF®) is a production-proven, deterministic sub-aperture finishing method that overcomes many limitations of traditional polishing. Sub-aperture Stitching Interferometers (SSI®) extend the effective aperture, dynamic range, and accuracy of phase measuring interferometers by combining novel software and hardware. QED has pioneered these finishing and metrology techniques over the past decade. Some of the latest developments on how MRF and stitching interferometry may be combined to enable cost effective manufacturing of a wide range of precision optical surfaces will be presented. Some interesting aspects of growing a business from a university spin-off to a wholly owned subsidiary of a publicly traded company will also be covered.