Description: For the purposes of supporting planned and future NASA missions and addressing an unmet NASA need for high-quality visible through shortwave-infrared telescope phase-correction optics manufactured and delivered quickly and inexpensively, Voxtel proposes a Phase II effort to develop a new class of three-dimensional freeform optics and to demonstrate the optical precision and size reduction possible for NASA satellite optical systems. The Phase I optic and ink design will be executed to improve the focus of the NASA dual freeform mirrored optical system, reduce aberrations fundamental to the design, and correct measured manufacturing process variations. Both aperture-side and field-side freeform GRIN optics will be combined in nonrotationally symmetric forms and additional freeform mirror design variables will be explored—including variations in the spacing and angular tilt of freeform mirrors—and solutions will be developed that includes polychromatic performance. Material properties will be characterized in radiation conditions expected at near-earth orbit and low-earth orbit, and new or existing nanocomposites will be developed as needed to demonstrate highly reliable operation in space radiation and harsh environment applications. Voxtel’s Phase II effort will increase the technology-readiness level from 4 to 6 by delivering to NASA a flight-capable optic produced on production-ready processes.

Benefits: These freeform gradient optical corrector plates?and related gradient-index (GRIN) optics?will be useful for small-scale satellites (known as nanosats), for multi-freeform-mirror optic paths in satellites such as the Coastal Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics Imager (COEDI), for optical subsystems for the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) including the operational wide-field telescope, the integral field spectrograph, and the coronagraph, and for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) optical simulator (OSIM) wavefront sensors.

Commercial and defense applications include ophthalmic lenses, weapon-firing control optics, optical laser-sighting systems, binoculars, borescopes, interferometers, microscopes, telescopes, camera lenses (including cell-phone camera lenses, a growing segment), solar concentrator, window anti-reflection coatings, and lensed encapsulants for LEDs and white lighting.