TECH FOCUS: OPTICAL PRISMS
Life in colour
A look at the commercial offerings of the main players in optical prism technology and equipment
P
risms are, of course, an established part of numerous photonic technologies, having
been around for a long time. One of the first documented uses of these solid glass optics dates back to the 1660s, when Isaac Newton conducted a series of experiments with sunlight in which he identified the ROYGBIV colours (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet) that make up the visible spectrum of clear white light. An
optical prism is a transparent object with flat, polished surfaces that refract light. Prisms are often used to split white light into its component colours or to recombine colours that have been separated. They are also used in instruments such as binoculars, periscopes, and telescopes to change the direction of light. Prisms work using refraction, bending the light as it passes through a material with a different refractive index. When
EDMUND OPTICS FEATURED PRODUCT
Prisms work using refraction, bending the light as it passes through a material with a different refractive index
Edmund Optics is a world-class manufacturer of stock and custom optical prisms. The company produces more than 500,000 prisms per year from a wide variety of Schott, Ohara and CDGM substrates. Its factories utilise a full range of precision manufacturing equipment for grinding, polishing and fine-finishing, all supported by a comprehensive suite of metrology. These capabilities allow highly-skilled technicians to hit specifications such as λ/10 irregularity, 1 arc-minute angular tolerances and 10-5 surface quality. World-class prism manufacturing facilities are complemented by a
vast inventory of standard components that can be quickly modified for rapid prototyping. Where a fully custom prism is required, expert optical design and manufacturing engineers can help develop a solution. All prisms are available with a wide range of anti-reflective coatings on the entrance and exit faces, as well as metallic coatings for reflective surfaces if needed. More information:
www.edmundoptics.eu/capabilities/optical-prisms
36 Electro Optics March 2024
light enters a prism, it slows down and changes direction because the angle of incidence is not equal to the angle of refraction. This results in a separation of the light into its component colours (dispersion). The amount of dispersion depends on the angle and shape of the prism and the refractive index of the material it is made of. The different colours are bent at slightly different angles, causing them to exit the prism at slightly different locations. This is why white light entering a prism looks like a rainbow. Types of prisms include
dispersive prisms, which are used to break up light into its constituent spectral colours; reflective prisms, which are used to reflect light, in order to flip, invert, rotate, deviate or displace it; and beam splitting prisms, in which thin-film optical layers are
deposited on the hypotenuse of one right-angled prism, and cemented to another to form a beam-splitter cube. Use cases for these types of prisms include imaging applications in the fields of spectroscopy, telecommunications, surveillance and astronomy, to name just a few.
Commercial products Vendors that offer optical prism solutions include Artifex Engineering, which has a large variety of custom prisms, including all typical designs that can be tailored to requirements. Prisms include right-angle prisms, dove prisms, pentaprisms, corner cube reflector, and wedge prisms. CeNing manufactures a range
of precision prisms including right-angle prisms, wedge prisms, dove prisms, penta prisms, corner retroreflectors
www.electrooptics.com
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