Dear Altair-LSFM team,
First of all, thank you very much for sharing the Altair-LSFM design and the detailed open-source documentation. We are currently building an Altair-LSFM system based on your paper and online tutorials, and your work has been extremely helpful to us.
Our question concerns the two achromatic doublet lenses in the illumination beam-expansion section. According the enlarged illumination-path diagram, the input beam first passes through an f = 30 mm achromatic doublet and then an f = 80 mm achromatic doublet. Our understanding is that these two lenses form a beam-expansion and re-collimation unit.
Based on our limited understanding, when two positive achromatic doublets are used as a Keplerian beam expander, the relatively flatter surface of each lens should face the intermediate focal point. In this configuration, the f = 30 mm lens focuses the incoming collimated beam near the intermediate focus, and the f = 80 mm lens re-collimates the diverging beam. Therefore, we would normally expect the flatter sides of the two achromatic doublets to face each other toward the intermediate focus, while the more strongly curved sides face the outer collimated beam regions.
However, when looking at the rendered layout figures and the external appearance of the corresponding lens mounts, we became unsure whether the intended orientation in the actual Altair-LSFM build might be different from our expectation. Of course, we fully understand that the rendered drawings or visible mount features may not accurately indicate the internal optical surface orientation of the mounted achromatic doublets. We are not suggesting that anything is wrong in the design; we simply hope to avoid installing the lenses in the wrong direction.
May I kindly ask whether, in the intended Altair-LSFM build, the flatter surfaces of the f = 30 mm and f = 80 mm achromatic doublets should face the intermediate focal point and therefore face each other? Or does the Altair-LSFM design intentionally use a different orientation for these two lenses?
If a different orientation was intentionally chosen, we would also be very grateful to know whether this was based on optical simulation, Zemax optimization, or practical alignment considerations.
Thank you again for your generous open-source contribution and for making this microscope design accessible to researchers from non-optical backgrounds.
Best regards,
Dear Altair-LSFM team,
First of all, thank you very much for sharing the Altair-LSFM design and the detailed open-source documentation. We are currently building an Altair-LSFM system based on your paper and online tutorials, and your work has been extremely helpful to us.
Our question concerns the two achromatic doublet lenses in the illumination beam-expansion section. According the enlarged illumination-path diagram, the input beam first passes through an f = 30 mm achromatic doublet and then an f = 80 mm achromatic doublet. Our understanding is that these two lenses form a beam-expansion and re-collimation unit.
Based on our limited understanding, when two positive achromatic doublets are used as a Keplerian beam expander, the relatively flatter surface of each lens should face the intermediate focal point. In this configuration, the f = 30 mm lens focuses the incoming collimated beam near the intermediate focus, and the f = 80 mm lens re-collimates the diverging beam. Therefore, we would normally expect the flatter sides of the two achromatic doublets to face each other toward the intermediate focus, while the more strongly curved sides face the outer collimated beam regions.
However, when looking at the rendered layout figures and the external appearance of the corresponding lens mounts, we became unsure whether the intended orientation in the actual Altair-LSFM build might be different from our expectation. Of course, we fully understand that the rendered drawings or visible mount features may not accurately indicate the internal optical surface orientation of the mounted achromatic doublets. We are not suggesting that anything is wrong in the design; we simply hope to avoid installing the lenses in the wrong direction.
May I kindly ask whether, in the intended Altair-LSFM build, the flatter surfaces of the f = 30 mm and f = 80 mm achromatic doublets should face the intermediate focal point and therefore face each other? Or does the Altair-LSFM design intentionally use a different orientation for these two lenses?
If a different orientation was intentionally chosen, we would also be very grateful to know whether this was based on optical simulation, Zemax optimization, or practical alignment considerations.
Thank you again for your generous open-source contribution and for making this microscope design accessible to researchers from non-optical backgrounds.
Best regards,