Germanium hit $8,500 per kilogram in mid-2026. That’s more than double the price two years ago. At that rate, every tenth of a millimeter of germanium lens kerf loss during slicing translates directly into dollars lost — not pennies, not fractions, but real dollars per cut. If you’re still using a blade or ID saw […]
Germanium Lens Kerf Loss Reduction: How to Save $80K+ Per Year Read More »
After cutting and centering, a germanium blank is flat — a disc with parallel surfaces, correct diameter, and clean edges. But a flat disc is not a lens. The grinding stage generates the curvature — spherical or aspherical — that gives the lens its optical function. Germanium lens grinding equipment shapes each face of the
Germanium Lens Grinding Equipment: Generating Precision Curves on IR Lens Blanks Read More »
A germanium lens with Ra 50nm surface roughness will pass an incoming inspection. It will also scatter roughly 0.3–0.5% of incident 10 μm radiation at each surface — enough to reduce thermal imaging system sensitivity by a measurable margin and, in high-power laser applications, to create localized absorption hotspots that degrade the lens over time.
Germanium Lens Surface Roughness: What Ra 5nm Means and How to Achieve It Read More »
After wire saw slicing, a germanium blank has two problems: the surfaces aren’t flat enough, and they aren’t parallel enough. Wire cutting delivers Ra 0.6–1.2 μm surface roughness with TTV (total thickness variation) of 8–15 μm on a Φ50 mm blank. For many infrared optics applications, that’s not good enough to go straight into spherical