Looking at the stars

These unspectacular parts are used in the support structure of 6 m mirrors in two telescopes from CPI VERTEX ANTENNENTECHNIK GmbH to observe in the millimeter and submillimeter range 🔎

These mirrors may deviate only minimally from the perfect geometry, even under temperature variations. Therefore we used the Iron Nickel Alloy Invar 36®. With its low thermal expansion this material is perfectly suited for demanding measuring instruments such as these sensitive and high-precision telescope systems.

"Because we have a high number of variants and a low number of pieces per variant for these Invar 36® components, the LPBF process is economical and competitive compared to, for example, welding or machining. In addition, geometries can also be created that would not be possible with other manufacturing processes, or only at great expense."