OSA honours the research of Rochester groups

17 Jun 2002

Improved efficiency and cost-effectiveness are a winning combination.

A new way to measure aspherical optical surfaces, a design for off-axis telescopes, and a more cost-effective way to weed out optical manufacturing errors have earned an award for three research groups at the Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, US. The Optical Society of America (OSA) named the scientists' work the best of the year for 2000.

Thomas Brown, Associate Professor of Optics; Duncan Moore, Professor of Optical Engineering; and Paul Murphy, a former optics graduate student currently at QED Technologies, Inc, were cited for developing a more accurate and cost-effective way to measure aspherical optical surfaces, such as the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror. The team worked out how to correct for interferometer-induced errors using computer modelling.

Bryan Stone, Assistant Professor of Optics, and graduate student Richard Youngworth worked toward the more accurate tolerancing of optics. The group devised a new way to "weigh" the different errors in a component and thus create more accurate optics from the same machines.

Joseph Howard, a Rochester graduate now at NASA, and Bryan Stone determined the rules that govern off-axis optical designs for telescopes. These rules enable the use of spherical mirrors in telescopes, which are easier and cheaper to produce than the parabolic mirrors that are usually used. This work could lead to more sensitive, cheaper telescopes and other optical devices.