Multiband Optics for Imaging Systems

This paper presents new multispectral IR glasses with transmission from 0.9 to > 14 μm in wavelength and refractive index from 2.38 to 2.17. These new glasses are designed to have comparable glass softening temperatures and compatible coefficients of thermal expansion to allow bonding and co-molding of multilayer optics. With large variation in their Abbe numbers and negative to near-zero dn/dT, optics made from these new glasses can significantly reduce the size/weight or complexity of the multispectral imaging systems for weight sensitive platforms.