A catadioptric lens includes at least two optical elements arranged along an optical axis. Both optical elements are configured as a mirror having a substrate and a highly reflective coating applied to an interface of the substrate. The highly reflective coating extends from the interface of the substrate along a surface normal. At least one of the highly reflective coatings has one or a plurality of layers. The optical total layer thickness of the one layer of the plurality of layers increases radially from the inner area outward.

An aerospace mirror having a reaction bonded (RB) silicon carbide (SiC) mirror substrate, and a SiC cladding on the RB SiC mirror substrate forming an optical surface on a front side of the aerospace mirror. A method for manufacturing an aerospace mirror comprising obtaining a green mirror preform comprising porous carbon, silicon carbide (SiC), or both, the green mirror preform defining a front side of the aerospace mirror and a back side of the aerospace mirror opposite the front side; removing material from the green mirror preform to form support ribs on the back side; infiltrating the green mirror preform with silicon to create a reaction bonded (RB) SiC mirror substrate from the green mirror preform; forming a mounting interface surface on the back side of the aerospace mirror from the RB SiC mirror substrate, and forming a reflector surface of the RB SiC mirror substrate on the front side of the aerospace mirror. Additionally, the method can comprise cladding the reflector surface of the RB SiC mirror substrate with SiC to form an optical surface of the aerospace mirror.

An optical arrangement includes an optical element (1) and a thermal manipulation device. The optical element has a substrate (2), a coating (3, 9, 5) applied to the substrate (2), and an antireflection coating (3). The coating (3, 9, 5) includes: a reflective multi-layer coating (5b) configured to reflect radiation (4) with a used wavelength (.sub.EUV). The antireflection coating (3) is arranged between the substrate (2) and the reflective multi-layer coating (5b) to suppress reflection of heating radiation (7) with a heating wavelength (.sub.H) that differs from the used wavelength (.sub.EUV). The thermal manipulation device has at least one heating light source (8) to produce heating radiation (7).

Optical structures, including thin film designs and components with topography, are provided that achieve significantly improved laser damage thresholds and/or ultra-low-loss. These advances may be achieved by utilizing a bulk window comprising a material having a band gap that is at least 5.0 eV and a thickness. The bulk window can be configured to increase the laser induced damage threshold of the underlying optical structure.

A multilayer mirror comprises a reflector section including a plurality of alternating layers of a high index material and a low index material, and a filter section over the reflector section. The filter section comprises a first filter layer including a low index material on a layer of high index material of the reflector section; a second filter layer on the first filter layer, the second filter layer comprising a high index material that is different than the high index material in the reflector section; and a third filter layer on the second filter layer, the third filter layer comprising a low index material. Each filter layer has an optical thickness greater than or equal to the optical thickness of each layer of the alternating layers. The filter section substantially blocks ultraviolet (UV) energy, thereby preventing UV energy from substantially impinging on the high index material of the reflector section.

Multilevel leaky-mode optical elements, including reflectors, polarizers, and beamsplitters. Some of the elements have a plurality of spatially modulated periodic layers coupled to a substrate. For infrared applications, the optical elements may have a bandwidth larger than 600 nanometers.

A multilayer mirror, method, and ring layer gyroscope (RLG) are disclosed. For example, the method includes forming a plurality of layers of a first index of refraction optical material on a substrate, forming a plurality of layers of a second index of refraction optical material between the layers of the first index of refraction optical material, forming a layer of a durable optical material on an outermost layer of the plurality of layers of the first index of refraction optical material, and forming an over-coating of a protective material on a surface of the layer of the durable optical material.

Various embodiments disclosed relate to multilayer films including hidden fluorescent features. The present disclosure includes a multilayer optical film including an isotropic multilayer optical film having first and second opposed major surfaces. The isotropic multilayer optical film reflects at least 50% of a light that is at least one of ultraviolet light or visible light, having an incident angle less than a cutoff angle from normal to the first major surface of the isotropic multilayer optical film, wherein the cutoff angle is in a range from 10 to 70. The isotropic multilayer optical film allows at least 50% of the light having an incident angle of more than the cutoff angle from normal to the first major surface of the isotropic multilayer optical film to pass through the isotropic multilayer optical film. The isotropic multilayer optical film includes a marking on the second major surface of the isotropic multilayer optical film, the marking including at least one fluorescent compound. Various embodiments of multilayer optical films described herein are useful, for example, as anti-counterfeiting features, such as in identification documents or cards, currency, labels for pharmaceuticals or other high value products, or financial cards.

An optical device includes a substrate and a stack of layers including metal oxides. Another optical device includes a stack of layers including metal oxides and a surface treating agent. A method of making an optical device is also disclosed.

The present disclosure discloses a saturable absorber mirror of a composite structure, including: a substrate; a buffer layer on the substrate; a distributed Bragg reflective mirror on the buffer layer; a quantum dot or quantum well saturable absorber body on the distributed Bragg reflective mirror; a graphene saturable absorber body on the quantum dot or quantum well saturable absorber body. In the present disclosure, the graphene saturable absorber body is composited with the quantum dot saturable absorber body or the quantum well saturable absorber body to be used as the saturable absorber body in the saturable absorber mirror of the present disclosure. A thermal damage threshold and an optical property stability of the saturable absorber body are improved, and an ultrafast laser pulse with high power and short pulse mode locking, a stable output repetition cycle, a narrow pulse width, and a short response time is implemented.