SCHOTT to offer high homogeneity optical glasses in quality levels up to H4 from stock

29 Jan 2014

Various high-quality optical glasses up to the homogeneity level H5 available

The international technology group SCHOTT that has over 125 years of experience in manufacturing special-purpose optical glasses has now announced that the most popular high-quality glass types of up to quality level H4 will be available from stock and can be ordered in the form of cut blanks starting soon. Furthermore, the company will be offering high-quality glasses for use in large high precision optics up to the homogeneity level H5. High Homogeneity Glasses are particularly well-suited for use in high-power laser and astronomical applications.

The superior quality of an optical material is reflected in its homogeneity and, to be even more specific, in an extremely narrow variation range for the entire piece of glass with respect to refractive index. “In response to growing demand, we will now be offering our customers a range of high homogeneity glasses that can be used to manufacture cut blanks extremely quickly and in a flexible manner,” explains Andreas Hädrich, Sales Director for Europe at SCHOTT Advanced Optics.

SCHOTT offers glasses in five levels of homogeneity. Thanks to a carefully controlled manufacturing process, glass pieces in H4 quality have a maximum peak to valley refractive index variation of 2 x 10-6, while the quality level H5 achieves a value of 1 x 10-6. The maximum variation of refractive index is expressed in peak to valley in accordance with ISO 12123. Glasses of this high quality enable extremely high resolution imaging and are ideally suited for use in high-performance laser technology to guide the beam very accurately, but also in measurement, semiconductor and satellite technology.

All products are shipped together with an individual test report that was produced using a special interferometer.

Some of these glasses are also available as i-Line glasses that combine extremely high refractive index homogeneity and high UV transmittance at 365 nm.

To find out more about High Homogeneity Glass, please visit: www.schott.com/advanced_optics/high-homogeneity-glass