Optical Design
James Mulherin is Optical Mechanics’ Master Optician. Since 1992 he has been designing optics for telescopes, Lidar, collimators, and custom optics projects.
OMI is a vertically integrated optics company offering services ranging from optical design to mechanical engineering and analysis, production, coating, assembly, alignment and on-site installation. We specialize in large aperture imaging systems, primarily utilizing first-surface mirror and catadioptric designs. We consult with customers to determine the best optical system for their project based on their imaging needs, matching the field of view and image scale to detector and pixel size.
Our primary optical design tool is Zemax optical design software.
Optical Design Analysis and Consulting
We advise you on the ease or difficulty of fabricating optics sets that meet the needs of your project and on the cost versus performance for alternate configurations that meet your desired specifications. We can calculate tolerances in an optical design to determine if there are any practical mounting or alignment issues to take into consideration for a given optical design.
In addition we can advise you on the thermal properties of your system and on coating options for special applications including reflectivity vs. wavelength, environmental issues, longevity, and related issues.
Optical Production
Our in-house optics production facility is set up to fabricate individual custom optics as well as larger production runs. Our optics production capabilities include:
- Fabricate and test first surface mirrors up to 50 inches aperture
- Parabolic mirrors as fast as F/1.5
- Hyperbolic
- Light-weight substrate and mirror fabrication using CNC machines with diamond tooling
Optical Testing
We test the quality of the optics we produce throughout the production process to ensure each optic meets or exceeds the requisite specifications. Our optics testing capabilities include:
- Auto-Collimation testing up to 40” clear aperture
- Hindle test for convex hyperboloid mirrors (Cassegrain secondary mirrors)
- Ritchey-Common testing of large optical flats
- Interferometric testing
- Stress birefringence testing