From history to future market requirements of optical glass at SCHOTT

Abstract

In 1884 Otto Schott, Ernst Abbe and Carl and Roderich Zeiss founded the SCHOTT & Associates Glass Technology laboratory in Jena, Germany. Otto Schott’s target was to develop new glasses on optical positions defined by Ernst Abbe and high reproducible quality that would tremendously improve the image quality of Carl Zeiss microscopes and optical instruments. Prior to 1880, optical components were made from simple crown and flint glasses. The crown glasses were soda-lime silicates with low refractive indices and moderate Abbe numbers. The flint glasses were lead silicates with relatively low Abbe Numbers. By 1884 already two dozen flint and crown glasses were available for optical system designs. Still today photonics industry relies heavily on optical glasses to realize tightest optical design requirements of today photonics applications. The difference between today and the past is that the designer can choose from a variety of more than 120 optical glasses with differences in optical position, transmittance and very specific dispersion requirements.