Colloquium: David Shafer - Highlights of my 51 Years in Optical Design

Abstract(s):
Dave Shafer will show many examples of interesting optical design projects from his long career (still going, by the way). These include a formerly top secret new way to detect the presence of Russian submarines, with technology that can now - 50 years later - be bought for $50 on the internet and used to see if you (a movie star) are being stalked by paparazzi. Also an optical device, which you probably have in your home, that allows one to see back through the door peep-hole viewers from the outside and reverse their function, now used by police and firemen. An unusual new type of stereo viewer was designed for Salvador Dali, who had done some stereo painting pairs. Dave's lithographic designs for making computer chips are made by Zeiss and they have made many hundreds at a cost about $50 million each, with highly aspheric surfaces that are made to atomic level accuracy.

Speaker Bio(s):
David Shafer has been a designer of optical systems for the last 51 years. In 1980, after working in industry for 15 years, he started his own one-person design and consulting company – David Shafer Optical Design. He has about 150 patents for unusual optical designs and has published and spoken widely about new optical designs and design methods. Most of his work for the last 20 years has been for Carl Zeiss, in Germany. His most odd business client was the surrealist artist Salvador Dali, in 1980. Today all state of the art computer chips are made using a new type of lithographic optical system that Dave invented in 2006. One of Dave's novel telescope designs was on the Cassini spacecraft that went to Saturn, while other ones went to the asteroid Vesta, the planetoid Ceres, and landed on a comet.