Laser Components has begun offering a series of mirrors in which the reflecting face is at exactly 45° to the base, to a precision of 1 arc minute. The company offers many choices of metal for the mirror, including copper, aluminium and stainless steel. Most surfaces can be coated with a dielectric, for example, an aluminium mirror substrate coated for high reflectivity in the UV and visible spectrum. Copper bending mirrors, the company says, are ideal for use with high power CO2 lasers or medical Er:YAG lasers, as they maximise heat removal.
The company states that some of its customers from the medical industry had previously found traditional adhesive glass-on-metal bonding techniques to be insufficient, as the mirror flatness was distorted and the glass mirror moved over time, thereby losing alignment of the precision scanning equipment during use. Using a one piece stainless steel bending mirror significantly simplified assembly of the equipment and improved productivity, as well as improving consistency of the equipment in the field. A solid metal bending mirror allows simple replacement of the mirror during on-site servicing, where factory based alignment equipment is not available.