Drilling Quartz Rods: An Update

We are happy to report that our efforts to drill quartz rods are meeting with success.

A year later, please see our Optical Fiber Preform blog entry from December 2012, we are able to drill much smaller holes.

We were approached by the same research team at a university who are leaders in the field of optics, photonics and lasers. They wanted us to drill 6 equidistant holes in a 25mm rod. The holes are 1.21mm (~0.0476″) in diameter and 215mm (~8.5″) in length.

At the same time, we received an order from a private company that wanted 5 preforms, each with 2 holes that are 5.75mm in diameter, similar to those that we had drilled for the university the year before. This time, however, they wanted the inside of the hole to be polished, something the university had not required.  A hole finish of 0.25 RA μm is not an easy task to achieve, but we succeeded.  In fact we managed ~0.10 RA μm. If we were wearing suspenders, we’d proudly snap them.

The private company and the research facility share information about their work, and we are pleased that we can be a part of it. And we would also like to be part of your success story when it comes to drilled glass rods, so please contact us to find out how we can help with your project.