Colleagues:

Fall is coming in two weeks and the Great Pumpkin is right down the road.  It’s time to kick-back and just look around a bit at this Glorious Summertime…

I’ve had about four weeks on the road lately, touching base with all of you (or most of you, I hope).  Then I cruised around SoCal in my spare time chinning and jawboning with the local industries’ participants.  So, what are the “hot items” for optomechanical engineers today?  Well, how ’bout…

precision dimensioning and tolerancing of optical structures
repeatability and stability of instrument performance
broken optical glass

I’d have trouble identifying the most important of these, it all depends upon what’s happening NOW.  All three of these have kept me pretty busy since Valentine’s Day.  The greatest uncertainty for the engineer, however, is in the strength of optical glasses.  Its not just mirrors and windows. 

I’ve participated in two projects in which the optical design had to be revised (compromising performance) to replace glasses that could not pass the environmental tests.  Perhaps, someday, the glass houses will start to provide strength information on their data sheets near the Young’s modulus and Poison’s ratio.  Today the engineer can’t be sure until the tests are passed.

And we, all of us, managed to squeeze-in a terrific conference with SPIE in San Diego last month (32 papers published).  How we were able to pull that together, I just don’t know.  But, it would never have happened without you and the terrific staff at SPIE who keep us on the right track.

Here comes Guy Fawkes Day. Get your bonfires, and marshmallows, ready! All our prayers this day are with those who may be in harm’s way.

Al H.
9-7-17