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UltravioletPhotography

Single-material aspheric achromats sound promising for UV


Andy Perrin

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Historically focal shift in lenses has been corrected by using two materials, a "flint" glass and a "crown" glass fused together. Thus we have UV lenses that use quartz and fluorite for example. The problem with this method is that any change in refractive index can cause reflections at the interface and there are always losses.

 

It seems Edmund found a way to dodge the usual limitations of lens optics by developing some kind of custom optical formula that allows them to correct the focal shift using just the lens shape alone, without involving multiple materials. This leads to SINGLET lenses with low focal shift.

 

Since UV lens designs with fewer elements always perform better, a UV lens with such a design would be ideal for us. Currently Edmund is only advertising their lens for use in the visible spectrum (and at $1000, not a very attractive price), but the technology itself sounds very promising.

 

Here is their article on their new tech:

https://www.edmundop...eric-achromats/

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Meh, going steeply to zero by 360nm? That doesn’t look promising, and also it wouldn’t be focal shift corrected for UV which is the entire point. If you don’t care about focal shift then you can use any old quartz singlet such as we have already seen tested on the board here. But they could easily adapt this to other materials and produce a UV version.
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Meh, going steeply to zero by 360nm? That doesn’t look promising, and also it wouldn’t be focal shift corrected for UV which is the entire point. If you don’t care about focal shift then you can use any old quartz singlet such as we have already seen tested on the board here. But they could easily adapt this to other materials and produce a UV version.

 

Not sure about that this is what they say:

"Edmund Optics® has been diamond turning single-material achromats out of Zeonex E48R, a commonly used optical plastic; they can also be diamond-turned from other materials, including germanium and silicon."

 

Hopefully they can diamond-turn PMMA. The we have some hope for better UV transmission. But there examples are more for IR.

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