This course will review all of the benefits and challenges of a consulting career in optics. Each attendee will be given the opportunity to self-evaluate based on their engineering and business strengths. Topics such as how to set up your business, sole-proprietorships vs. incorporation, determining fees, marketing, legal issues with clients, balancing family and work, invoicing, managing finances, websites, success evaluation, and taxes will be covered.

This course provides attendees with the basic principles of constructing the most practical optical coating design. The main sources of production errors are considered and estimated. Choosing appropriate monitoring strategies for successful production of optical coatings of various types is discussed. The course demonstrates how post-production optical characterization is used to increase production yield. The course presents the potential benefits of computational manufacturing as a tool for reducing production costs and raising design manufacturability.