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About Solarscope |
Solarscope Ltd is based in the Isle of Man, and is located in a modern, custom built factory one mile from Ronaldsway airport. The environment is ideal for manufacturing optics to the highest standards.
The test room has been built on separate foundations from the main building to eliminate vibration when testing optics. A Zygo Interferometer is used to monitor optical quality during the production process. The Solarscope Products are produced by a team of highly skilled engineers, technicians and opticians, each with more than twenty years experience in the design and manufacture of Fabry Perot etalons and instrumentation. Their skills enable them to work to the highest standards of optical flatness and parallelism tolerances.
This is a British Company through and through, founded by Ken Hugget, a British resident who has lived and worked on the Isle of Man all his adult life. He has over 30 years experience in Laser and Fabry-Perot instrumentation.
The pictures below show Ken Hugget 'contacting' a A Fabry Perot 'air spaced' etalon - a highly skilled technique!
A Fabry Perot 'air spaced' etalon consists of a matched pair of 'fine pitch' polished and accurately figured fused silica plates, with highly reflective 'non absorbing' coatings for the desired transmission wavelength. The etalon is assembled by optically contacting spacers to the plates, defining the appropriate air gap.
The basis of the Solarscope etalon is a matched pair of ultra fine pitch polished, accurately figured λ/100 fused silica plates, with partially reflective, low absorption coatings for 656.28nm on the front faces and anti-reflection coatings on the back faces. The spacers are cut from low thermal expansion material, polished and figured to high levels of surface flatness and parallelism. The etalon assembly has optically contacted spacer pieces of very precise thickness uniformly arranged around the etalon plate periphery to provide maximum rigidity and stability for the air gap. When the etalon optical contacting procedure is complete, the tuned etalon assembly is resiliently mounted into a cell designed to afford shock protection and freedom from stress.
A Fabry Perot etalon used as an optical filter provides the major benefits of very narrow spectral line transmission and high throughput. Descriptions of etalon theory can be found in the more comprehensive optics textbooks.
The test room has been built on separate foundations from the main building to eliminate vibration when testing optics. A Zygo Interferometer is used to monitor optical quality during the production process. The Solarscope Products are produced by a team of highly skilled engineers, technicians and opticians, each with more than twenty years experience in the design and manufacture of Fabry Perot etalons and instrumentation. Their skills enable them to work to the highest standards of optical flatness and parallelism tolerances.
This is a British Company through and through, founded by Ken Hugget, a British resident who has lived and worked on the Isle of Man all his adult life. He has over 30 years experience in Laser and Fabry-Perot instrumentation.
The pictures below show Ken Hugget 'contacting' a A Fabry Perot 'air spaced' etalon - a highly skilled technique!
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The basis of the Solarscope etalon is a matched pair of ultra fine pitch polished, accurately figured λ/100 fused silica plates, with partially reflective, low absorption coatings for 656.28nm on the front faces and anti-reflection coatings on the back faces. The spacers are cut from low thermal expansion material, polished and figured to high levels of surface flatness and parallelism. The etalon assembly has optically contacted spacer pieces of very precise thickness uniformly arranged around the etalon plate periphery to provide maximum rigidity and stability for the air gap. When the etalon optical contacting procedure is complete, the tuned etalon assembly is resiliently mounted into a cell designed to afford shock protection and freedom from stress.
A Fabry Perot etalon used as an optical filter provides the major benefits of very narrow spectral line transmission and high throughput. Descriptions of etalon theory can be found in the more comprehensive optics textbooks.