Photonics Pointers

Dr. Stuart A. Hoenig

Airline maintenance workers often use hard dry ice particles in a spray to remove paint from surfaces under conditions where it might be difficult to clean up sand or other spray materials that remain behind. After the dry ice particles hit the surface, they melt to a liquid and evaporate, eliminating any cleanup.

Softer dry ice flakes can effectively clean telescope lenses, mirrors and a variety of semiconductor devices without damaging them. Dry ice cleaning is easy, is efficient and does not fracture the most delicate glass objects. Many users have found the system useful for cleaning plastic lenses, for example...