Methods to achieve fast, accurate, and mechanically robust optical breadboard alignment

Usually, laboratory optical systems use commercially off-the-shelf components. On one hand they are easy to assemble and have a wide range of adjustability. One the other hand however, they often require individual alignments that can be very inefficient, time consuming and most of these optomechanical mounts lack the mechanical robustness to maintain operational performances. In this paper, we propose an optomechanical assembly method based on passively aligning design features to simplify breadboard level optical systems, to improve alignment accuracy and maintain operational pointing stability. Discover how INO can bridge the design technological gap between the early prototyping and the production phases with this method.