Optomechanics is a field of mechanics that addresses the specific design challenges associated with optical systems. Intended for practicing optical and mechanical engineers whose work involves both fields, this describes how to mount optical components, as well as how to analyse a given design. Common issues involved with mounting optical components are discussed, including stress, glass strength, thermal effects, vibration, and errors due to motion.

This tutorial presents optomechanical modeling techniques to effectively design and analyze high-performance optical systems. It discusses thermal and structural modeling methods that use finite-element analysis to predict the integrity and performance of optical elements and optical support structures. Includes accompanying CD-ROM with examples.

The process of designing lenses is both an art and a science. While advances in the field over the past two centuries have done much to transform it from the former category to the latter, much of the lens design process remains encapsulated in the experience and knowledge of industry veterans. This SPIE Field Guide provides a working reference for practicing physicists, engineers, and scientists for deciphering the nuances of basic lens design.

This Field Guide derives from the treatment of geometrical optics that has evolved from both the undergraduate and graduate programs at the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona. The development is both rigorous and complete, and it features a consistent notation and sign convention. This volume covers Gaussian imagery, paraxial optics, first-order optical system design, system examples, illumination, chromatic effects, and an introduction to aberrations. The appendices provide supplemental material on radiometry and photometry, the human eye, and several other topics.

Opto-Mechanical Systems Design, Fourth Edition is different in many ways from its three earlier editions: coauthor Daniel Vukobratovich has brought his broad expertise in materials, opto-mechanical design, analysis of optical instruments, large mirrors, and structures to bear throughout the book; Jan Nijenhuis has contributed a comprehensive new chapter on kinematics and applications of flexures; and several other experts in special aspects of opto-mechanics have contributed portions of other chapters. An expanded feature—a total of 110 worked-out design examples—has been added to several chapters to show how the theory, equations, and analytical methods can be applied by the reader. Finally, the extended text, new illustrations, new tables of data, and new references have warranted publication of this work in the form of two separate but closely entwined volumes. This second volume, Design and Analysis of Large Mirrors and Structures, concentrates on the design and mounting of significantly larger optics and their structures, including a new and important topic: detailed consideration of factors affecting large mirror performance. The book details how to design and fabricate very large single-substrate, segmented, and lightweight mirrors; describes mountings for large mirrors with their optical axes in vertical, horizontal, and variable orientations; indicates how metal and composite mirrors differ from ones made of glass; explains key design aspects of optical instrument structural design; and takes a look at an emerging technology—the evolution and applications of silicon and silicon carbide in mirrors and other types of components for optical applications.

Entirely updated to cover the latest technology, this Second Edition gives optical designers and optomechanical engineers a thorough understanding of the principal ways in which optical components - lenses, windows, filters, shells, domes, prisms, and mirrors of all sizes - are mounted in optical instruments.Along with new information on tolerancing, sealing considerations, elastomeric mountings, alignment, stress estimation, and temperature control, two new chapters address the mounting of metallic mirrors and the alignment of reflective and catadioptric systems.The updated accompanying CD-ROM offers a convenient spreadsheet of the many equations that are helpful in solving problems encountered when mounting optics in instruments.