Towards freeform curved blazed gratings using diamond machining

Bourgenot, C.; Robertson, D.J.; Stelter, D.; Eikenberry, S.

Abstract

Concave blazed gratings greatly simplify the architecture of spectrographs by reducing the number of optical components. The production of these gratings using diamond-machining offers practically no limits in the design of the grating substrate shape, with the possibility of making large sag freeform surfaces unlike the alternative and traditional method of holography and ion etching. In this paper, we report on the technological challenges and progress in the making of these curved blazed gratings using an ultra-high precision 5 axes Moore-Nanotech machine. We describe their implementation in an integral field unit prototype called IGIS (Integrated Grating Imaging Spectrograph) where freeform curved gratings are used as pupil mirrors. The goal is to develop the technologies for the production of the next generation of low-cost, compact, high performance integral field unit spectrometers.

Citation

Bourgenot, C., Robertson, D., Stelter, D., & Eikenberry, S. (2016). Towards freeform curved blazed gratings using diamond machining. In R. Navarro, & J. H. Burge (Eds.), Advances in optical and mechanical technologies for telescopes and instrumentation II. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2231182

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (Published)
• Conference Name: Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation II
• Online Publication Date: Oct 12, 2016
• Publication Date: Oct 12, 2016
• Deposit Date: Feb 13, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 16, 2018
• Series Title: Proceedings of SPIE
• Series Number: 9912
• Series ISSN: 0277-786X,1996-756X
• Book Title: Advances in optical and mechanical technologies for telescopes and instrumentation II.
• ISBN: 9781510602038
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2231182
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1145944