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Schott Marks 2 Milestones

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SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 5, 2009 -- Schott Worldwide celebrated its 125th anniversary, and the 40th anniversary of its Advanced Optics facility in Duryea, Pa., at SPIE Photonics West by introducing several new products to the North American market.

Schott Advanced Optics presented new diffractive optical elements for laser beam shaping applications and special short flint glasses especially suited for high apochromatic microscopy lenses. The company's Electronic Packaging business introduced a new hermetic transistor outline (TO) product capable of handling Fibre Channel applications of 17 Gb/s, while the Fiber Optics business was touting the increased capacity (now doubled to 300 sq mm) of its one-piece faceplates used for large-format medical, military and commercial applications.

Schott Advanced Optics was Schott Worldwide's first manufacturing facility in the US and today is the only melting facility for optical glass in the country. The business is marking not only Advanced Optics' 40 years in Duryea, but the 40th anniversary of its Zerodur zero-expansion, high-homogeneous glass ceramic used in applications such as astronomy, lithography, measurement technology and mechanical and optical systems.
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Schott's Zerodur glass ceramic on display at Photonics West 2009. The piece weighed nearly 6000 lbs. (Photo: Photonics.com)
Drawing attention at the Schott booth at Photonics West was the very large piece of Zerodur on display. The piece weighed nearly 6000 pounds and needed to be put in place via forklift.

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"We're reinvigorating Zerodur on our 40th anniversary. It happens to coincide with the 40th anniversary of our Duryea [Pa.] facility also," said Stephen Krenitsky, vice president, Advanced Optics, Schott North America Inc.

"Everybody buys high-homogeneity materials that are developing precision optical instruments, but we've made a commitment to really support this industry in a dramatic way by large investments in process and capabilities. Just recently we upgraded a lot of our capabilities for these types of optical elements. We've defined the areas that we wanted to focus in besides our normal traditional business, and really concentrated our energies into that," Krenitsky said.

A major attraction for Schott's new diffractive optical elements (DOEs) is that they can be mass-produced by a new precision molding process adapted from the high precision glass molding techniques used in the production of the company's aspherical lenses. DOEs are used in hand-held miniprojectors, medical lasers and other devices that require rectangular laser intensity distribution in a compact size.

New products are not Schott's only focus, however.

"We've put a huge emphasis on customer service. We've really ramped up our customer service and balanced inventory to serve the market better," Krenitsky said. One result of its emphasis on customer service is its on-time delivery performance improved from about 72 percent to 98-99 percent. Also, because the company makes its own glass, it is uniquely positioned to provide customers across its business units with complete solutions in-house.

Its laser materials portfolio for laser applications is also becoming more of a focus for both Advanced Optics in Duryea and the division worldwide.

"We've always done the large laser projects, but we also have a commercial laser business. We're really tailoring the product portfolio for a whole host of laser applications that are based on our glasses, the active lasers and the passive materials for beam systems, for windows, coatings, etc. to supply a whole range of products that would be used for laser applications. We are working on some additional new materials for active lasers, and that research is being done at our facility in Duryea," Krenitsky said.

For more information, visit: www.us.schott.com

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PHOTONICS WEST 2009




Published: February 2009
Glossary
astronomy
The scientific observation of celestial radiation that has reached the vicinity of Earth, and the interpretation of these observations to determine the characteristics of the extraterrestrial bodies and phenomena that have emitted the radiation.
beam
1. A bundle of light rays that may be parallel, converging or diverging. 2. A concentrated, unidirectional stream of particles. 3. A concentrated, unidirectional flow of electromagnetic waves.
glass
A noncrystalline, inorganic mixture of various metallic oxides fused by heating with glassifiers such as silica, or boric or phosphoric oxides. Common window or bottle glass is a mixture of soda, lime and sand, melted and cast, rolled or blown to shape. Most glasses are transparent in the visible spectrum and up to about 2.5 µm in the infrared, but some are opaque such as natural obsidian; these are, nevertheless, useful as mirror blanks. Traces of some elements such as cobalt, copper and...
homogeneous
That property of a substance that determines that all components of volume are the same in composition and optical properties.
lithography
Lithography is a key process used in microfabrication and semiconductor manufacturing to create intricate patterns on the surface of substrates, typically silicon wafers. It involves the transfer of a desired pattern onto a photosensitive material called a resist, which is coated onto the substrate. The resist is then selectively exposed to light or other radiation using a mask or reticle that contains the pattern of interest. The lithography process can be broadly categorized into several...
optical
Pertaining to optics and the phenomena of light.
photonics
The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems. The range of applications of photonics extends from energy generation to detection to communications and...
zerodur
Schott Glass Technologies' trade name for a glass-ceramic material with a very low coefficient of thermal expansion.
advanced opticsasphericalastronomyBasic SciencebeamBiophotonicsCoatingscustomer servicedefensediffractive optical elementsDOEDuryeaEmploymentfiber opticsglasshomogeneousindustrialKrenitskylenseslithographymedicalMicroscopyminiprojectormoldingNews & FeaturesopticalphotonicsPhotonics WestSCHOTTZerodurLasers

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