Schott (Mainz, Germany) is celebrating 125 years in business by introducing several new products to the North American market at the SPIE Photonics West Exhibition (San Diego, CA). Although the major theme of the display is the anniversary, the company is unveiling new additions from several Schott businesses to the full range of Schott photonics-related products at the show.
"True-color" special short flint glasses, N-KZFS4, N-KZFS5 and N-KZFS8, which enable high-end apochromatic lens design, were introduced by Schott's Advanced Optics business. These glasses, which have very high light transmission in the blue-violet range, are well suited for life-science applications such as fluorescence microscopy. The business also announced and will present a paper detailing the development of very high-quality optical-glass laser-beam-shaping diffractive optical elements (DOEs) that can be mass-produced by a precision molding process adapted from the same high-precision glass molding that is used for the production of aspherical lenses.
From the Fiber Optics business comes increased capacity one-piece fiber-optic faceplates that double the image area to 300 square millimeters. The new faceplates will be of particular interest to producers of medical X-ray machines and displays for commercial and defense applications.
Also on display is a new line of customizable aspherical lens caps that use proprietary Schott low Tg glasses. The aspherical lens caps complete the range of Schott's microelectronic glass-to-metal and ceramic-to-metal sealing technologies, according to the company. Finally, Schott recently received a "supplier award" from BAE Systems (Farnborough, England) for its consistent on-time delivery of hermetically sealed power and control/instrumentation feedthroughs for the Astute-class submarines of the Royal Navy.
Guests at the Schott booth will be invited to review the company's 125-year history that not only parallels the development of modern technology and science, ranging from small laboratory instruments to the largest astronomical telescopes, but also serves as a microcosm of the division and reunification of Germany itself in the Cold War and its aftermath.
The most recent developments in that long history are the acquisition of DiamondView Armor Products, LLC (DAP; Boothwyn, PA), which has been renamed Schott DiamondView Armor Products (Schott DAP). Schott DAP produces transparent and opaque armor systems to protect personnel, structures and vehicles from blasts and projectiles, primarily in defense applications. Another recent acquisition gave Schott 70.8 percent of Japan¹s Moritex Corporation, which produces LED-based and fiber-optic lighting systems, as well as optical-imaging systems for use in industrial image processing (machine-vision systems).
John Wallace | Senior Technical Editor (1998-2022)
John Wallace was with Laser Focus World for nearly 25 years, retiring in late June 2022. He obtained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and physics at Rutgers University and a master's in optical engineering at the University of Rochester. Before becoming an editor, John worked as an engineer at RCA, Exxon, Eastman Kodak, and GCA Corporation.