HORIBA Jobin Yvon has been producing gratings for space experiments since 1968. The first ruled gratings were produced for the French space experiment D2A in 1970.

HORIBA Jobin Yvon has produced some of the most technically-challenging space-flight gratings ever designed, applications ranging from off-plane X-ray gratings to toroidal VLS gratings for the VUV and transmission deep groove gratings for the IR range.

For example, HORIBA Jobin Yvon produced the four gratings for NASA/JHU FUSE spectrograph.

The gratings are 5800 gr/mm, aberration corrected, holographically ruled on 300x300 mm, aspherical light weight ceramic.

A prototype FUSE spectrograph grating being removed from a vacuum tank in a clean room at HORIBA Jobin Yvon. The FUSE gratings are approximately a foot square with 5300-5800 lines per millimeter etched onto the surface (the exact number changes as a function of position across each grating, and they are slightly curved). These etchings are what disperse far-UV light into a spectrum for analysis, and provide the high spectral resolution of the spectrograph.

HORIBA Jobin Yvon has also often been selected by NASA and ESA for their most demanding missions. A very reduced list includes:

Recently we produced gratings for missions such as EVE (NASA/LASP) and SSULI (NRL).

HORIBA Jobin Yvon Receives NASA Award

HORIBA Jobin Yvon received the NASA award “Commitment to Excellence in Technology Achievement” for its grating technology contribution for its specific support on the COS project.

“In recognition of your holographic gratings for the COS instrument that will enable a new generation of scientific exploration for the Hubble Space Telescope […] and every person who looks to the sky in wonder […] the gratings were delivered above the specification, on time and within cost,” said Prof. Jim Green.

Product, Test and Space Qualifications
Bulk Transmission Gratings for Astronomy