Published Papers

A convenient and concrete example of aligning three centers of curvature is the cementing of the doublet we used in the optical axis example in Chapter 5, the details of which are reproduced below. Fig. 1 Doublet used as an example of aligning three centers of curvature The goal is to get all three centers […]

In the previous chapter we looked at finding a single center of curvature using any of several optical instruments. This locates a particular point in space but does not define an axis. For that, two centers of curvature separated by a finite axial distance must be located to define an axis, or line. This chapter […]

In this Chapter we will discuss the centering of a single center of curvature of a lens in a cell sitting on a rotary table that creates a reference axis. This discussion describes the traditional method of centering a lens in a cell. While this does not sound like an ambitious goal, the ideas presented […]

The purpose of optical alignment is making the optical axis of an optical element, or complete system, coaxial with some other axis that is defined by other optical or mechanical components. This means we must start the discussion of optical alignment by making sure we all mean the same thing when we say the optical […]

There is no better way to describe an autostigmatic microscope (ASM) than to call it an autocollimator (AC) with a microscope objective attached to the front. This converts the AC from an instrument that measures 2 angular degrees of freedom (DOF) into an instrument that measures the location of the center of curvature of a […]

Authors: Robert E. Parks (Optical Perspectives Group, LLC) and Daewook Kim (J. C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona). INTRODUCTION Following the discovery of so called non-diffracting Bessel beams[1], they have been used for a number of exotic purposes such as trapping single atoms and aiding in the discovery of exoplanets. We discuss more […]