Cage systems

Cage systems, like optical rails, are platforms for constructing custom optical systems.

Thorlabs’ 16 mm, 30 mm, and 60 mm cage systems are well known (shown above). The numbers refer to the on-center square spacing of the four 6 mm rods that form the backbone of the cages (4 mm rods in the case of the 16 mm cage system). There are some lesser-known cage systems as well.

Edmund Optics

Edmund Optics recently launched a line of cage system optomechanics. Many of the pieces may fit (or fit with minimal modification) items in the Thorlabs system since they also use 6 mm rods. More broadly, Edmund Optics actually has an excellent line of optomechanics that includes a lot of products that go beyond what Thorlabs offers. For example, these z-axis brackets.

Newport

Here is Newport’s impenetrable cage system. Personally, I think it was a brave choice to hire M.C. Escher as an optomechanical engineer.

Qioptiq

Formerly known as the infinitely more pronounceable Linos, their Microbench and Nanobench lines are excellent. On paper, they should be compatible with Thorlabs 30 mm and 16 mm cage systems, respectively, but in practice I find that there often needs to be just a little bit of modification– e.g., widening holes slightly. Maybe this is due to English-to-metric round-off errors, or different tolerances.

Others

CVI Melles Griot and Siskiyou both have excellent lines of optomechanics, but no cage systems as far as I can tell.

Elsewhere on Labrigger:
Alternative Optomechanics