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It seems like you've already got lot of good suggestions, but I'll add my two cents and suggest that you err on the side of making sure that the mirrors/dichroics don't fall off. A new mirror is cheaper than a new eye, and quite possibly also cheaper than the time you might spend on realignment if a mirror does detach itself. In my opinion this rules out double sided tape, and other adhesives of similar strength. When working on a home built interferometric microscope we initially used double sided tape to attach mirrors to their mounts, but switched to cyanoacrylate (superglue) once a couple of them had fallen off, sending the laser beam on an unpredictable course and necessitating a whole day spent on realignment. This was special strong double sided tape which was nominally suitable for optics mounting but it still failed. The really insidious bit was that failure occurred about 6 months down the track, and with very little warning. These were
front surface mirrors on an 8-10mm substrate and we applied the glue over the whole mirror back. In this configuration we didn't see any deleterious effects on wavefront quality, but it could certainly be an issue with thinner dichroics which are only secured at the edges.
cheers,
David
________________________________
From: Matthew Nicholas <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, 27 June 2012 5:30 AM
Subject: Re: Removable glue for optics
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On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Gregg Jarvis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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>
> Chroma dichroics should be hard oxide or sputtered, should be no
> problem for solvents.
>
Just to reiterate my earlier point regarding dichroic mirrors and
hard-drying glue (e.g. cyanoacrylate (Krazy glue) or nail polish) --
this was an issue I encountered when using Chroma mirrors (even on the
thicker 1.5mm versions specifically for lasers; I expect this would
happen with any mirror less than about 0.5" thick, and maybe even with
these). If you are using the dichroic in a pathway for a laser, it
will almost certainly mess up your beam profile when using these
glues/cements because they literally bends the mirror as they dry.
Conversely, a dab of soft-drying glue should be possible to apply in
such a way that there is no contact with the optical surface (only the
mirror edge -- if it is rather gelatinous/thick to start out with, it
will not be drawn onto the optical surface.). This can usually be
removed without solvent while leaving negligible residue. The other
issue with using solvents, even if the mirror can tolerate them, is
that you increase the risk of spreading the glue around unless you are
very careful.
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