Paper
18 September 2013 Athermal mounting of optics in metallic housings
Zachary N. Leahy, Andrew J. Magner
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
This paper illustrates an athermal mounting for a Zinc Selenide (ZnSe) optic in an AlBeMet housing for use at cryogenic temperatures. The GOES-R Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument beamsplitter utilizes this design and the difficulty is the significant delta in the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) between the housing and the optic. The high discrepancy in CTE is exacerbated by a large thermal range from an ambient assembly to cryogenic operational temperature. The assembly utilizes CTE matched clips bonded to the optic using a well controlled bondline. The clips are attached to an optimized spacer of a high CTE material that is used to reduce the CTE mismatch. The spacers are coupled to a four flexure design that is symmetric in both axes. The net effect reduces the apparent CTE between the optic and the housing in a space constrained mounting. The flexures allow the final small amount of expansion room that the assembly requires as it goes over a large temperature swing. This design was qualified through extensive thermal cycling and vibration testing, and exhibited performance acceptable for production.
© (2013) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Zachary N. Leahy and Andrew J. Magner "Athermal mounting of optics in metallic housings", Proc. SPIE 8836, Optomechanical Engineering 2013, 88360P (18 September 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2025266
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KEYWORDS
Beam splitters

Adhesives

Optical mounts

Glasses

Cryogenics

Thermography

Imaging systems

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