New Project of the Operational Programme Research, Development and Education

The project Partnership for Excellence in Superprecise Optics develops long-term cooperation with the research centre TOPTEC and its industrial partners – CRYTUR, spol. s r. o. company, a world producer of crystals and crystal optics, and asphericon GmbH, leader in the field of aspherical optics.

Institute of Plasma Physics and the TOPTEC Centre obtained support from the Operational Programme Research, Development and Education for their project of Long-term Intersectoral Cooperation.

The project Partnership for Excellence in Superprecise Optics develops long-term cooperation with the research centre TOPTEC and its industrial partners – CRYTUR, spol. s r. o. company, a world producer of crystals and crystal optics, and asphericon GmbH, leader in the field of aspherical optics.

The project creates the conditions for solving the scientific problems associated with the preparation of new generation optical systems. It deals with the development and characterization of new materials, especially crystals produced in CRYTUR, and thin layers and structures of required properties. The project emphasizes the development of the technologies (CNC and pressing) of obtaining and machining surfaces of predominantly nontrivial optical elements (aspherical and freeform elements), deals with suppression of periodic structures and minimization of subsurface damage during final surface finishing and explores new methods of designing unique complex optical systems, which also take into account the possibility of systems implementation and the economic aspect of their production. The proposed technological processes for the materials and components are tested in industrial plant operations and the feedback provided by them provides a further degree of optimization in all areas of collaborative research. The project envisages the development of new interferometric measuring methods, which allow to determine (with extreme accuracy) the shape and quantitative properties of non-trivial surfaces or the 3D map of the refractive index distribution. These measurements are absolutely crucial for achieving progress in the accuracy and repeatability of all activities and for their subsequent implementation in partner development and production chains.

The project Partnership for Excellence in Superprecise Optics is co-funded by the European Union.