Barrington, NJ. Edmund Optics (EO) announced it is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2017. The company was founded as Edmund Salvage in 1942, receiving surplus war supplies from the Frankfurt Arsenal in Philadelphia to repair and sell. At that time, founder Norman Edmund sold a pcx lens for ten cents and an achromat for twenty-five cents. War surplus made optics affordable and accessible to his fellow optics enthusiasts.
The company has focused on serving its customers from the first Edmund Scientific catalog in 1943 to providing supplies for the space race in the 1950s and 1960s, including the ninety-five cent Barlow lens used in a color camera on the Apollo 11 lunar mission. In the 1980s when Edmund Scientific split into Edmund Scientific and Edmund Industrial Optics. Edmund Optics introduced telecentric optics in the late 90s and added new manufacturing capabilities in 2000 with high-precision spherical components, optical prisms, and high quality optical coatings, with optical quality ensured by state-of-the-art optical testing.
In the mid-2000s, magnetorheologic finishing (MRF) and aspheric manufacturing were added to the optics toolbox. From design to prototype to volume production, Edmund Optics can provide λ/20 accuracy optical flats, spherical optics, and high precision, spherical aberration corrected aspheres. The innovative Cx Series Lenses with a user-adjustable mid-section has interchangeable accessories including filters, apertures, and liquid lenses. These modular lenses were the Silver Winner for the 2016 Vision System Design Innovators Award.
“We’re very excited to be celebrating our 75th Anniversary! It’s been a long tradition of customer service and support in optics,” said Marisa Edmund, executive vice president of global sales and marketing, Edmund Optics. “At Edmund Optics, we believe that the future of the world depends on optics. We have developed new technologies such as aspheric lenses and laser optics coatings to continue that tradition. We have just over 800 employees around the world, with manufacturing in the United States, Japan, Singapore, Southern China, as well as sales offices in Europe.”
Edmund Optics reports that it has more than 28,900 products available and is continually adding thousands of new products each year, from optics to optomechanics to imaging. The company serves life sciences, biomedical, semiconductor, R&D, and defense markets around the globe.
