Customizing Catalog Optical Filters Guide

In the world of high-quality optical filters, where precision is paramount, the ability to tailor parts to your exact requirements is essential. At IDEX Health & Science, we offer a range of Semrock^™ optical filters to meet your specific needs. This guide will introduce you to our available customization options, listed below.

Custom-sized Catalog: The IDEX Health & Science website offers custom sizing of Semrock catalog filters. Whether you need an unmounted round or a rectangular filter, or need the filter mounted into one of our standard-sized aluminum housings, you can use our Custom Sizing tool to calculate the price for the required quantity of the part number and add it to your cart to purchase. Need a larger Clear Aperture (CA) or a custom part marking? We can accommodate that as well!

Semi-custom: If the catalog spectral, wavefront, glass, and thickness specifications meet your needs, but you require more flexible sizes and / or shapes, we offer the so-called Semi-custom filters. These use our catalog coated stock with its custom sizing options, but now with further customization options like tighter dimensional tolerances, larger clear apertures, and corner cuts. You can also personalize filters with customized packaging labels, QC data, and part markings.

Fully Custom: If you have spectral or wavefront requirements that are not found in the catalog, or if you need different substrate glass thickness or material, we offer fully custom optical designs, which require a dedicated coating run. The filters made from such coating runs can use the full range of physical shaping options described here.

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Table 1 summarizes the essential characteristics of each of the customization categories. For full detail, refer to Table 7 below.

Table 1: Summary of customization categories for Semrock^™ filters; see Table 7 for details

Resources

Use these resources to select or specify the specific customizations described in this guide.

Custom Part Builder tool: to create your own Custom-sized Semrock optical filter or check the in-stock availability of optical filters in your desired size. The link is located below the product description on each product web page. Learn more by exploring our Custom Part Builder Tutorial .

Custom Form: to request a Semi-custom or Fully Custom filter, fill out our online form here: Request a Custom Optical Filters. Alternately, you can fill out the Semrock Optical Filters Requirements Worksheet per filter and send to our technical team at semrock@idexcorp.com

Scroll down to learn more about our customization options for optical filters.

Semi-custom Product Capabilities

Custom Sizing

At IDEX Health & Science we coat on material that we dice or core drill to the final part size, so you can purchase our catalog designs with the precise dimensions needed. We offer both round and rectangular custom-sized catalog parts with size typically ranging from 5 mm to 50.8 mm.

A selection of sizes can be ordered on the website using our Custom Part Builder tool located below the product description on each product page.

Need a size outside the Custom Part Builder’s offering, such as with a 31.4 mm unmounted diameter or a 60 x 60 mm square? Please contact us -- it is possible that we can accommodate your request.

Some filters are limited to smaller sizes due to their demanding spectral specifications, while others can be available in sizes 70 x 70 mm or larger.

Note that if you are looking for parts with nonwhole millimeter dimensions or small sizes, rectangular shaped filters are preferred due to greater manufacturing flexibility.

Table 2: Custom Sizing Capabilities

* Filter families including but not limited to RazorEdge^™, MaxLine^®, MaxDiode^™, LaserMux^™, NIR, MaxMirror^®, and Verona^™ may be limited to smaller maximum sizes.

Housed Filters

IDEX Health & Science offers standard-sized aluminum housings with the following outer dimensions: 12.5 mm, 25 mm, 25 mm Sutter Threaded Rings, 32 mm, and 50 mm.

In the standard catalog configuration, each housed filter is available in only one filter housing thickness, either 3.5 mm or 5.0 mm. However, you can order it mounted in any of our other standard housings. There are no charges applied when changing just the filter housing thickness from 3.5 to 5 mm and conversely. This option is, however, currently not available from the Custom Part Builder, so please use the Custom Form to request it.

Example: The catalog part FF01-680/42-25 is available mounted in a 3.5 mm thick, 25 mm diameter housing. If you instead prefer this mounted in a 5 mm thick housing, use the Custom Form; you can order the FF01-680/42-25x5.0 at the same price.

Table 3: Standard-sized Housings

(**) The 3.5 mm thick housings can only accommodate substrate thicknesses ranging from 1.05 mm to 2.0 mm; the 5.0 mm thick housings can be selected for any of our filters with substrate thickness from 1.05 mm to 3.5 mm.

For some filters, our Custom Part Builder does not allow selection of the housed version. These are typically filters with Flatness or RWE specifications, which would be degraded by the stress induced by the mounting. Such filters can be obtained as Semi-custom, with the same specifications as the catalog part but without guaranteed Flatness and RWE performance.

If you need housed filters with different dimensions or specific mechanical requirements, ask us -- we can design custom filter housings, as well as assemble filters into customer-supplied modules.

Custom Dimensional Tolerances

The standard dimensional tolerance for unmounted Custom-sized Catalog filters is ± 0.1 mm. We can accommodate tighter tolerances using the Semi-custom option, preferably larger than 0.1 mm full range, for instance +0/- 0.1 mm, or ± 0.05 mm. 

Table 4: Custom Dimensional Tolerances

Custom Clear Aperture

Optical filters are designed with a defined Clear Aperture (CA), i.e., the area of the filter over which spectral and cosmetic specifications are guaranteed. The CA is specified either in millimeters (mm) or as a percentage (%) of the overall dimension.

Although the optical coating extends to the edge of every Semrock filter, the CA must be less than the transverse dimensions for each filter.

In the case of housed filters, the maximum CA is limited by the aperture of the ring or housing, and thus depends on the housing diameter and thickness; please refer to Table 3.

For unmounted optical filters, the standard CA is 85% of the filter dimension for round parts and 80% elliptical for rectangular parts. This is the specification that applies to Custom-sized Catalog filters. In most cases, and when required by the application, a CA greater than 90% is possible using the Semi-custom option. However, a larger CA makes the part more difficult to manufacture due to the requirement to meet both the spectral specification and the cosmetic specification over the entire CA, especially for parts with large dimensions or demanding specifications. It is also necessary to keep a minimum clearance between the CA and the physical edge of the filter to allow for bevels and any edge defects that may occur when the part is cut from the coated substrate. We recommend allowing at least 0.5 mm clearance from each edge, hence a maximum CA of 80% for smaller filters with 5 mm diameter or lateral dimension.

Table 5: Clear Aperture

Custom Part Marking

We offer a variety of custom markings to help easily identify your filters.

The following options may have some limitations depending on the filter size, thickness and/or clear aperture. Please contact us to discuss your specific requirements.

Table 6: Part Marking Capabilities

(***) Except for a selection of BrightLine® Multiphoton filters

(****) Edge marking can be either applied manually or printed by machine. Our machine printed Edge Blackening process can be used to mark filter edges with text, colored dots, and an arrow, even on filters that are not edge blackened.

Figure 1: Examples of part marking options

Edge Blackening

Edge blackening is the application of a matte black paint to the edges of an optical filter to prevent stray light inside the filter from re-entering the light path outside the filter or to prevent stray light from entering. Learn more about Edge Blackening.

For questions about the lifetime of edge blackening paint on a filter and if there are any special methods to clean these filters, visit our Optical Filter FAQs.

IDEX Health & Science offers edge blackening for most Semrock optical filters. Our Custom Part Builder tool allows specifying edge blackening to Custom-sized Catalog filters, by appending -EB to the part number.

Please contact us for sizes outside the Custom Part Builder options so we can best address your needs. Edge blackening may not be suitable if the part is too small. There are also limitations to the maximum clear aperture and dimensional tolerances. Finally, our new machine printed edge blackening may be a lower cost option than manual edge blackening which is used for custom-sized catalog parts and small volumes.

Packaging and Packaging Label Requirements

Our standard and custom-sized catalog filters are delivered in individual packaging, with a pre-defined packaging label that includes the part number, lot code and work order for traceability.

We offer other filter packaging options including Gel-Pak, Vacuum-Release^TM (VR) trays, or multi-cavity Pet-G trays. The Packaging Label can also be customized to include custom description such as your part number.

What Makes a Filter Fully Custom?

While many customization options are available, changes to spectral specifications, glass thickness, or material (Type, Wedge, TWE, Flatness) will require a new custom run and make the part fully custom.

Table 7: Fully Custom versus Custom-sized Catalog and Semi-custom options

FAQ: What makes an optical filter custom?

Figure 2: Example of part markings