Often our work starts with assisting the customer in making prototypes, when the design of the product already exists. For the prototyping we consider two phases: single prototype for design verification and series prototypes (typically 20-100) for assembly trials, user trials and environmental test programs.
In the case of a single prototype, the goal is to verify the optical function of the design and considerable freedom is taken in materials choice and processing methods. In the case of a mirror for white light, for the first design verification we have chosen for aluminum as substrate material, to be combined with a PMMA lens in the final construction. All surfaces ultra high precision diamond turned, aluminium as well as PMMA are very well suited for this process and can be machined with surface roughness better than 5 nm Ra.
In the next phase, such parts will be molded and coated by means of a PVD process for reflectivity and anti-reflectivity characteristics.
When a series of prototypes is required, we design and manufacture prototype molding: single cavity molds, set up to be as economical as possible, so we’ll use standard moldbases and unhardened materials where possible.
 Glass insert in prototype tool |  Single cavity prototype lens |