Design and testing of additively manufactured optics mounts

Designing opto-mechanics for laser systems using metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) can reduce a system’s volume & weight, consolidate sub-assemblies, integrate multi-functional elements, and can lead towards fully monolithic systems. We introduce specialized techniques to design, manufacture and test compact metal additive manufactured monolithic flexure optical mounts for mm-scale mirrors, windows and lenses. We developed optical testing of µ-radian laser beam pointing errors to quantify optical boresight drift over temperature. We also developed high-resolution imaging polarimeters for milli-radian polarization retardation measurement, to critically evaluate the effects of optics mounting, assembly and bonding, as well as differential thermal expansion of optics in metal mounts. We designed novel metal AM monolithic flexure optical mounts for tip-tilt adjustment, and flexures to retain an optic free of adhesives. These are benchmarked against top-in-class traditionally manufactured mounts, while exposed to thermal load, shock, and vibration conditions applicable to robust laser systems.