Notice of the Thursday, September 21, 2006 Meeting

I. An expedition through darkest optics, with gun and pinhole camera

You probably made a pinhole camera in the second grade, so of course you know what one is. Google returns more than 700,000 hits, starting from the 5th century BC.

But how much do you really know about a pinhole camera?

II. A cool new way to mold lenses

Speaking of the infrared, the thermal IR spectrum is getting interesting again because of new digital image-forming technologies, such as uncooled bolometer arrays. These devices still need lenses to form their images, but if we want to use an aspheric surface here and there in an optical design, conventional wisdom only offers us expensive diamond-turned components or molded chalcogenide glasses. You will get an early look at some lens design options that will use a new (patent pending) technology: cold powder molding. You will see how an infrared lens can be made inexpensively, even one with a completely free-form shape!

This new approach to manufacturing offers lenses in high volume for the infrared, out to 20 or 50 microns wavelength, with excellent transmission and a variety of available material properties, for an attractively low cost. We can now make spherical and aspheric infrared lens components, diffractive infrared optical elements, and even infrared lens and prism arrays, with almost the same convenience we knew and loved when molding optical plastic!

Bill Plummer

Bill Plummer received his AB and PhD degrees in Physics from the Johns Hopkins University, where he worked with Prof. John Strong in infrared planetary astronomy. He joined Polaroid in 1969, in time to work closely with Edwin Land and Jim Baker on the SX-70 camera and a lot of other commercial products, and for more than twenty years was Director of Optical Engineering. He has published 40 papers and has given as many invited talks around the world. He has 96 US patents for optical, mechanical, electronic, and chemical inventions, with a few more pending. He has received the David Richardson Medal, the Joseph Fraunhofer Award, and the Robert M. Burley Prize from the Optical Society of America. He is a Fellow of the OSA and of the SPIE and is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering. For some years he has also been a Senior Lecturer with the Mechanical Engineering Dept at MIT. Bill has been an optical engineering consultant since 2001, and is founder and president of WTP Optics, Inc.

Reservations:
DINNER reservations are required by noon, Monday, September 18, 2006. MEETING ONLY reservations are required by noon, Thursday September 21, 2006.
Please make reservations on line or by email (nesosa@lambdares.com). Reservations may also be left on the answering machine at 617.584.0266. When making reservation requests, please provide the following information:

• DINNER AND MEETING or meeting only
• Name(s) and membership status
• Daytime phone number where you can be reached (in case of change or cancellation)

Menu:
Dinner will include a salad of mixed greens, chicken piccata with oven roasted potatoes and green beans, apple pie, and coffee, tea, or milk.

Vegetarian option available on request

Dinner Prices:

General Information on NES/OSA Meetings

If the meeting must be canceled for any reason, we will try to call you at the phone number you leave with your reservation. Official notice of cancellation will be on our answering machine.

We have to pay for the dinners reserved as of the Tuesday before the meeting, so no-shows eat into our cash reserve. If you will not be able to attend, please let us know as early as possible. Otherwise, no-shows will be billed.

Membership Rates:

NOTE: The extra $5.00 of the non-member dinner fee can be used toward membership dues if the nonmember joins and pays dues for the current year at the meeting.

Meeting address:
Sheraton Lexington Hotel
727 Marrett Road