OSSC Election Results
Congratulations to our newly elected
OSSC Board of Directors
for the
2021-2022 active period
President: Martin Seilonen
Vice President: John Nunn
Secretary: Alex Small
Treasurer: Martin Hagenbuechle
Counselors:
Felicitas Hernandez
Brian Monacelli
Harvey Spencer
Past President: Kevin Romero
Thank you Kevin and the rest of the leadership team for an outstanding year during challenging times!
Professional Education
There was an Information Session - Monday 19 August
OSSC Fellow Donn Silberman was the guest speaker.
Summer 2021 courses begin in Late June:
Go to the links above to learn more about the courses and programs.
15% discount for OSSC Members on courses
Required for a Certificate.
Email: Kadie Heck
with confirmed OSSC Membership
to receive discount code.
Pasadena City College
Laser Technology Program
The first PCC LaserTech student cohort begins this Fall 2021 semester! Students completing the program in Laser Technology will learn the scientific principles of optics, fiber-optics, and lasers. Laser and Photonics Technology instructors lead hands-on, laboratory-driven classes, utilizing state-of-the-art industrial equipment, based on the industry-guided photonics curricula written by industry professionals. In addition to laboratory skills, students are offered one-on-one support and career advice, including résumé and LinkedIn profile building.
In Memoriam
Images Newsletter
Our newsletter is currently on hold.
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Other SoCal Webinars
Free Webinar
June 23 2021, 6:00 pm PDT
"Lasers Deep Dive..."
Dr. Russell Kurtz
IEEE So. CA Council, Orange County
Dr. Kurtz presents on laser performance, rate equations and ion-ion interactions. For abstract, bio and registration use link below.
Dr. Kurtz Event Registration
Free Webinar
June 29, 2021, 11:00 am PDT
"Solar Lenses in Space: The Search for Habitable Planets"
Dr. Henry Helvajian
Hosted by Southern Calif. Chapter
American Vacuum Society
It is possible to measure a multipixel (e.g. 200 x 200) image of an exoplanet, 100 LY distant, by harnessing the gravitational lensing properties of our Sun to give a magnification of a hundred billion times.
The location of the solar gravitational lens is, unfortunately, not near but at ~550AU (14 times further from the Sun than Pluto). In collaboration with NASA/JPL, UCLA and Xplore, The Aerospace Corporation has embarked on an investigation to develop the mission architecture.
For abstract, bio, and registration see link below.
Recent OSSC Meeting
OSSC Online Webinar
Wednesday June 9, 2021, 7:00pm
“Versatile Diffractive Flat Optics”
Prof. Rajesh Menon,
Dir. Lab. for Optical Nanotechnologies
Univ. Utah, Salt Lake City
Traditional refractive lenses are bulky owing to their curvature. Flat diffractive lenses can overcome this difficulty, but traditional diffractive optics have limited reach, primarily due to chromaticity. Recently, we have shown that by treating the “imaging” phenomenon as simply information transfer from the object to the image plane, the spatial distribution of the phase in the focal plane can be an arbitrary function.
Using this concept, we have shown that allowing the phase in the image plane of a flat lens to be a free parameter enables imaging properties of unprecedented versatility in flat, multilevel diffractive lenses (MDLs).
Our research group has demonstrated binary multi-level diffraction lenses in three high performance categories: super-achromatic lenses in three wavelength regions (8-12um 0.45-1 um, 1.5-150 um), high NA of 0.9 of at 0.85um, and extreme depth of focus (5mm to 1200mm).
We believe that our inverse-designed flat MDLs, which can be manufactured using low-cost imprinting techniques, could prove widely applicable—especially where weight and restricted form factor are important considerations, as in aerospace and airborne imaging as well as augmented and virtual reality displays.
Recent OSSC Meetings
OSSC Online Webinar, Thursday May 20, 2021, 6:30pm
“Redefining precision laser optics with substrate-transferred crystalline coatings”
Dr. Garrett Cole, Technology Manager,
Thorlabs Crystalline Solutions
Substrate-transferred crystalline coatings are a groundbreaking new concept in optical interference coatings, leveraging a combination of semiconductor materials and microfabrication techniques with super-polished bulk optics technologies.
These coatings are generated via a unique manufacturing process entailing separate crystal growth, microfabrication, and direct bonding that yields single-crystal coatings on arbitrary—including curved—optical surfaces. These “semiconductor supermirrors” were first demonstrated in 2013 with the key advantage being the ability to achieve ultralow levels of both optical and elastic losses.
With continuous refinement in production and metrology, we have reduced the scatter + absorption losses to < 5 parts per million (ppm) for near-IR wavelengths spanning 1064 to 1560 nm, enabling a cavity finesse exceeding 300,000 (mirror reflectance > 99.999%). In this spectral range, crystalline coatings are now fully competitive with ion beam sputtered films, while simultaneously yielding a significant reduction in Brownian thermal noise, a fundamental limitation in the stability of laser-based precision measurement systems including gravitational wave detectors and cavity-stabilized lasers for optical atomic clocks.
Additional advantages of these novel monocrystalline coatings include record-low-levels of mid-infrared optical losses, as well as an exceptionally high thermal conductivity for an ultralow-loss optical interference stack. Looking ahead, we see a bright future for crystalline coatings in applications requiring the ultimate levels of optomechanical and thermal performance.
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