Quality Assurance

One of Balboa Scientific's key strengths is in optical modeling, test & measurement, which is absolutely necessary in order to verify product quality.  Our in-house metrology laboratory is capable of measuring key properties and parameters of optical components such as transmission, reflection, mechanical dimensions, surface accuracy, surface quality, flatness, parallelism, squareness, angle, centering, MTF, focal length and radius of curvature. 

Our inventory of equipment includes a Zygo GPI 6-inch aperture interferometer including a vast assortment of transmission flats, transmission spheres, reference flats and reference spheres, Nikon 6D and Broomer Research autocollimators, Trioptics Micro-Optomatic lens measurement system, Nikon Measurescope, Gaertner lens benches, and a huge assortment of different lasers, light sources and test fixtures for performing customer-specified functional tests on optical components.

Spectral measurements on coated optical samples are performed during Q/A at each of our affiliated coating labs.  Upon request, we further validate these measurements at a local test laboratory using the most advanced UV-VIS-NIR and FTIR spectrometers.

Optical designs are analyzed and compared using Zemax optical design software, which is also used to generate ISO 10110 toleranced mechanical drawings of optical components.  Optical coatings are modeled using TFCalc software.