optic prototype manufacturing

[jjoll]

Hello,
I am a college student. Recently, theoritically, I have been working on new design of diffractive optic element, Now I want to test it in real life and see if it is really working (practically) or not. Now I am looking for manufacturer or producer to make a sample or prototype of DOE/HOE (on a zone plate) based on my specefications. But it seems that they do not write back to me due to the fact that I am just a single person and not a company. do you know any small optics producer that can build me a prototype? it that even possible, specially since my budget is tight as a student as well.
thanks

 

[JerryLove]

JML Optical - Custom Optics - Prototype to Production - Was the first that came up on Google.

If they don't return an email: try calling and asking for the sales department.

 

[Gavjenks]

A prototype of a diffractive optic? Probably not on a student budget. I don't know what sort of tech you would need to grind a precision diffractive optic, but definitely something WAY fancier than your average spherical lens grinder. Which means fewer companies and certainly higher price tags, and even getting a prototype of a custom SPHERICAL lens is pretty expensive for a student in my experience having tried to do that myself.

You are aware that diffractive lenses exist commercially and are currently sold by for instance Canon yes? What does your design offer that their does not? Or are you just talking about designing a specific model of lens, like a 135mm blah blah specific thing?

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-70-300m...id=1392589580&sr=1-1&keywords=70-300+do+canon
$500 used 70-300 top tier brand sharpness, etc., useful zoom range, hard to compete with.

 

[Gavjenks]

Oh, zone plate. I missed that. Are you talking about something more like a fancy, brighter version of a pinhole with concentric smaller holes going outward? For that, you wouldn't need a lens grinder or even anybody related to lens making. All you need is a dude with a high quality laser cutter CNC machine, which run like $50,000-100,000, so one-off use of it can't be that expensive to get a prototype from. My student machine shop in undergrad even had one we could use for $100 a semester fee for the whole shop.

Note that cheaper laser cutters often can't cut metal since it reflects and then burns the machine. So the ones capable of doing that probably cost more. But yeah, almost any major machine shop for making parts and stuff in the country can probably handle that, or refer you to somebody. And lots of them are mom and pop type things with people who answer the phone right on the floor. Check your yellow pages.

Or if you want to go REALLY small holes, you'd need a lithography company. I would probably want to test the concept for whatever you're doing on macroscopic zone plates first though.




Again, there are millions of places that already sell this stuff (usually for X ray imaging since you can't use normal glass to focus). A bit curious what you're offering that they don't (not stealable secrets, just what your eventual end product's special capabilities would be)?