Blog
Need Custom Optical Test Equipment?
WHY START FROM SCRATCH WHEN YOU CAN ORDER A PSM FROM OUR WEBSITE? It may surprise you but about 15% of Point Source Microscopes (PSMs) purchased are built into custom optical test hardware. Optical Perspectives supplies a CAD model of the PSM to help the customer integrate the PSM into their test hardware design. When […]
Announcement of Re-Publication of “Optics and Optical Instruments—Preparation of Drawings for Optical Elements and Systems: A User’s Guide”
FROM THE OSA PUBLISHING BOOKSHELF OSA Standards Committeeeds. Ronald K. Kimmel and Robert E. Parks We hope you appreciate this republication of ISO 10110 Optics and Optical Instruments—Preparation of Drawings for Optical Elements and Systems: A User’s Guide, first published in 1995. This open-access republication is intended to give you a feel for the ISO 10110 […]
Using the PSM as an Autocollimator
The other day I got a call from a PSM user asking about calibration. What he was really asking about was the setting of the zero, or origin, on the video screen. CROSSHAIRS IN THE CENTER OF THE FIELD This is the same sort of “calibration” people talk about when using autocollimators, which are the […]
Adding Mechanical Datums to CGHs and Fresnel Mirrors
In general, computer generated holograms (CGHs) and plane Fresnel mirrors (and lenses), made by the same techniques as CGHs, have optical “datums” or foci that are “rigidly attached” to the CGH or Fresnel plane substrate and move in six degrees of freedom with the substrate. THIS CONCEPT IS MORE EASILY SEEN BY CONSIDERING A GRATING […]
How Repeatably Can the Point Source Microscope Find Best Focus at a Center of Curvature?
Recently, a client asked how well can you focus if you really had to do better? I did not know but it was easy to do an experiment with our centering station that has a motorized stage and the ability to log data as the stage moves. It is easily demonstrated that the PSM lateral […]
How Well Can the Point Source Microscope (PSM) Locate the Source of a Single Mode Fiber?
I needed to measure the height of a free space fiber termination above an optical bench the other day and in the process remembered a question I had been asked in passing. Since I had the pieces of such an experiment in front of me, all I had to do was save a couple of […]