Artemis industrial tech portfolio companies specialize in embedded technologies that contribute to a healthier, safer, and more productive world. In the Engineering Tomorrow series, we highlight some of these businesses and the vital end-markets they serve. In this post, we feature McDanel Optics, a new division of McDanel Advanced Material Solutions.

McDanel Optics, formally Rayotek Scientific, was founded in 1992 by a group of physicists and engineers who were passionate about creating breakthrough products that pushed the boundaries of material capability. Today, their glass and sapphire products stand out for exceptional durability, high thermal resistance, and optical clarity, delivering no fail performance in harsh conditions including space and underwater defense applications, among others.

Materials

Glass is an excellent transparent material for use in optics applications such as sight glass windows, mirrors and reflectors, and optical diffusors. McDanel Optics sources multiple grades of fused quartz, fused silica, borosilicate, and soda-lime glasses to meet a variety of environmental requirements related to pressure, desired wavelength, and temperature.

Sapphire, (single-crystal aluminum oxide), is second only to diamonds in strength and outperforms all other optical, and in some cases non-optical, materials. Sapphire exhibits exceptional performance in a number of applications that require extreme mechanical, optical, thermal and chemical robustness. It survives in the harshest applications where polycrystalline alumina may fail.

Application Overview

Advanced materials technology continues to drive performance and innovation within the end markets that McDanel Optics serves. Below is a description of how McDanel Optics’ proprietary engineering technologies have elevated the capabilities of glass and sapphire to enable safer, more reliable, and higher performing components within these industries today.

Aviation, Space, and Defense

Before advanced glass and sapphire engineering was possible, transparent materials for windows and sensor housings were limited to conventional glass, which was susceptible to shattering and offered limited resistance to abrasion and impact. These vulnerabilities restricted the design and performance of aircraft cockpits, observation windows, and domes. McDanel Optics glass and sapphire can endure extreme pressures and temperatures while providing the ultimate in durability, transparency, and clarity, making them critical components for ultra-high-performance applications such as aircraft windows, sensors, lasers, missile domes, and night vision equipment. These characteristics are crucial to the successful deployment of no-fail defense systems, including fighter aircraft and missiles.

Medical and Pharmaceutical
The advent of highly engineered glass and sapphire marked new opportunities for safety, performance and reliability in the medical and pharmaceutical industries. Before the use of glass and sapphire, corrosive and reactive metals like copper and bronze were often used for crafting medical devices and tubes. Today, McDanel Optics’ highly engineered glass and sapphire is preferred in medical imaging devices such as endoscopes, X-ray tubes, and laser systems, which enable minimally invasive procedures and precise diagnostics. The biocompatibility, clarity, and durability of these materials make them ideal for lenses, cuvettes, and other analytical instruments. McDanel Optics’-engineered pressure-resistant glass components are used in high-pressure reactors and sterile environments for drug development and chemical processing.

Nuclear

The earliest materials used for sight windows within the nuclear industry included standard glass, quartz, polymer, metal, and certain types of ceramics. All these presented limitations in terms of radiation resistance and thermal stability. McDanel Optics specializes in producing high performance sight windows for the nuclear industry, serving both power generation and R&D sectors, offering both flanged and NPT sight windows that are engineered to withstand direct exposure to highly radioactive environments without compromising performance. With a 99.8% approval rate, McDanel Optics sight windows are trusted for use in nuclear energy equipment and the manufacturing of essential core components. There is no industry that places a higher value on safety, reliability, and performance.