Cavity reflectors, high-reflectivity mirrors, beamsplitters, filters, corner cubes, and tooling built for laser OEM systems where energy density and alignment leave little room for process drift.
IRD manufactures to your print — it does not design your optic. Send the drawing with the source type, wavelength, pulse conditions, coating target, and inspection requirement, and the technical team reviews it for manufacturability before quoting. For a new design that review is free of charge.
The substrate, figure, finish, edge geometry, and coating all contribute to what the optic does at operating power.
What IRD builds for laser OEMs, from the cavity out to the hardware that holds the beam path.
Custom reflector cavities for solid-state laser assemblies, manufactured in sapphire, doped glass, and other optical materials.
Prototype through repeat production
High-reflectivity mirrors paired with coatings chosen for wavelength, pulse conditions, and expected energy exposure. HLDT is IRD's shorthand for high laser damage threshold; LIDT is the term for the measurement, which ISO 21254 defines.
LDT exceeding 80 J/cm² at 1064 nm, 1 ms
Transmission and reflection performance coordinated with substrate, angle of incidence, and the rest of the optical train.
Precision non-imaging components that protect, locate, and hold the laser path without creating another supplier interface.
A global manufacturer of laser-based machine tools came to IRD after struggling to find a supplier who could hold both cost and quality on a large-area slotted mirror. In the design-for-manufacturability review, IRD's team identified that the sharp slot edges would shed fibers during cleaning, and that those fibers would become coating defects that pulled the damage threshold down. The customer added a 50 µm (0.002″) bevel — the maximum the required clear aperture allowed — and IRD built a cleaning process around it. The mirrors have consistently met the damage-threshold specification since. IRD is now the preferred supplier for the component, and one of only a few qualified for it worldwide.
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Damage threshold is set long before the coating goes on — by subsurface damage, residual stress, polishing and cleaning residue, and contamination. These are the controls IRD holds across a production run.
Fabrication runs staged fixed-abrasive grinding and loose-abrasive lapping, each step removing the micro-cracks left by the one before it. IRD works to the optical-fabrication rule of thumb that subsurface damage runs roughly 0.3× the mean abrasive diameter, so the abrasive sequence is planned backwards from the required finish.
Polishing target for high-damage-threshold optics: better than 10 Å rmsHand cleaning with isopropyl alcohol, cascaded detergent baths, deionized-water rinsing, oven baking, spin drying, proprietary solvent washing, and hydrofluoric acid etching for stress relief. Most high-damage-threshold optics get a cleaning process built for the part rather than a general optics clean.
Non-destructive checks in production include stereo microscopy, high-intensity light against a dark background per MIL-PRF-13830B, interferometry for roughness and for flatness, differential interference contrast microscopy for defect analysis, and high-magnification polarized microscopy with stitching for large-area parts.
Destructive HF-etch testing during process development maps subsurface damage against abrasive sizeCustom packaging supports the component on its edges or on non-critical surfaces outside the clear aperture, and holds it against shifting in transit.
These are capability limits, not blanket grades. Quote each surface and dimension to what the system actually needs.
| Attribute | Typical | Best case | Application note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surface flatness | 1 wave | < 1/20 wave | Wavefront-critical faces and mirrors |
| Surface roughness | Ra < 1 µin | Ra < 2 Å | Superpolished HR mirror faces; Ra < 5 Å is the general shop polishing capability |
| Parallelism | 30 arc sec | < 5 arc sec | Windows, filters, and beam-steering optics |
| Dimensional tolerance | ±.005″ | ±.0001″ | Finished geometry and mounting interfaces |
| Polished size | Print-defined | 16″ diameter | Polishing envelope; machining runs to 30″ × 16″ × 16″ |
These figures are IRD's published process capability across materials and geometries — not a guarantee for a given print. Material, geometry, clear aperture, and inspection method all move them, and every surface is quoted individually. IRD's published flatness and reflectivity values do not state a reference wavelength or angle of incidence: send your operating conditions and the team will confirm against those rather than against a datasheet.
Dedicated people, equipment, and floor space carry the program through machining, polishing, coating, and metrology — the cell owns the part from raw-material order to shipment. That reduces handoffs, keeps the process tied to the same print revision, and means your capacity is assigned rather than shared.
The IRD AdvantageUse these lists to frame the first review. The drawing, environment, performance requirement, inspection method, and volume determine the final route.
A web page is hard to attach to a review packet. These are IRD's own published technical documents on the questions this page raises.
IRD's account of what actually moves damage threshold — substrate composition and homogeneity, subsurface damage, residual stress, polishing and cleaning residue, contamination, and the coating/substrate pair — plus the slotted-mirror case study in full.
PDFWhite paperWhere a custom light pipe or homogenizer beats a catalog part on beam uniformity, and what it costs to get there.
PDFWebinarIRD's applications team on the information that makes a quote accurate the first time, and the omissions that cause a requote.
RecordingThe finished component often crosses product categories. These pages cover the nearest materials, processes, and program contexts.
IRD's quoting checklist: application, product type, volume potential and schedule, material, dimensions, surface quality, coatings, assembly, cleaning, and packaging. For a new design, the technical team runs a no-cost Design for Manufacturability review before quoting, then estimates prototype and production volumes separately.
Or call 320.693.7217. If you are qualifying a second source for a part already in production, say so — IRD asks for that work directly.