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Our Mission
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We are developing the ability to make exceptional quality lightweight mirrors by means of replication using our high-quality optics as mandrels. Composite materials have two big advantages over glass when used in adaptive optics. First, the faceplates do not fail because of brittle fracture. In an adaptive optic mirror a thin faceplate is needed to allow the actuators to flex to match the irregularities of an incoming wavefront. Thin glass faceplates often break. Composite faceplates with similar flexibility do not. Most men cannot break a thin composite faceplate a few millimeters in thickness with their hands. Second, composite faceplates are much lighter in weight than even lightweighted glass mirrors. The lightweight, strength, and flexibility make composite faceplates of great interest for active/adaptive optics. Composite adaptive optics can be corrected for atmospheric distortion, and also when used as an active optic element can correct for microfocus, microtilt and gravitational sag. By using adaptive optics, the largest astronomical telescopes looking through the atmosphere can achieve 2.5 times higher resolution than can the highly successful Hubble Space Telescope.
Our specialty is developing large (up to one meter in diameter) superpolished mandrels for lightweight, low-scatter, astronomical quality composite mirrors employing our patented active or adaptive actuators. The composite mirrors are made of many prepreg layers (graphitic unidirectional layers impregnated with resin). This material is lightweight (1.61 g/cm3) but tough with a lateral thermal expansion coefficient in the 10-8 range (similar to ULE or TSG). The mirror surface can be superpolised (microroughness less than 1 nm rms, or scattering level 10 times lower than good astronomical optics).
Bennett Optical Research, Inc. (BOR) is a highly respected small business research and development laboratory located in Ridgecrest, California -- just a few miles from the Naval Air Warfare Center at China Lake (the Department of Defense's largest research and evaluation defense complex). The focus of our BOR scientific and engineering team is to develop superior quality, low-scatter mirrors to use as mandrels for making transfer optics. Our location in the City of Ridgecrest enjoys 100-mile visibility and the greatest number of cloudless days in the United States -- an ideal location for our facility.
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