Mechanical Design

Mechanical design and its combination with optical design are among the key competencies at Fraunhofer IOF.

This includes optimization in the mounting of optical components and the required joining processes (soldering, bonding, laser welding), the design of kinematic suspensions and the development of associated adjustment algorithms.

A further area of focus is the thermal design of optical systems, aimed at making these insensitive to temperature influences from the environment or to thermal lenses in high-performance applications.

Further focal areas include the design of optical elements with low mass and high stability for space applications and the design of adaptively optical elements on the basis of piezoelectric actuators.

Tools for this process are finite-element simulation and CAD systems.