One-hundredth anniversary of Russian optical glass

One hundred years since optical glass began to be produced in Russia is a date worthy of respect. Not many scientific and engineering specializations have existed in Russia for an entire century without losing scientific urgency and practical significance.
In that century, starting from virtually nothing, Russia, which became the Soviet Union, and then again Russia, has had outstanding success in this field. The largest set of optical and special glasses were developed and put into production by industry, making it possible, among other things, to solve the problems of lens construction for space applications at a brilliant level in the 1960s. The scientists who worked in this specialty occupied leading positions in the scientific community, while the theory of the glassy state created by Russian scientists has been the methodological basis of work on the study of the structure of glass. As the founder of the State Optical Institute, Academician D. S. Rozhdestvenskiı˘, said: “Without optical glass, there is neither understanding of nature nor mastery over it,” and this very accurately indicated the place of optical glass-making in optics. It is no accident that the scientific center of Russia, St. Petersburg–Petrograd–Leningrad–St. Petersburg, was the place where this specialization had its source and where it is still being developed.
By the beginning of the First World War, optical glass for any optical devices, as pointed out in a report from the Chief Artillery Administration to the Defense Minister of Russia, “was entirely obtained from Germany. There are no factories in Russia that fabricate such glass.” Glass-making specialists saw the cause of this in the “complete impossibility of competing” with foreign factories, and especially with the Schott Laboratories in Germany, which were “furnished with scientific laboratories and served by well-educated specialists.” Such was the state of affairs. The threat posed to Russia’s security by the situation with optical glass was recognized by the highest leadership of the Russian Empire.
We shall not dwell in detail on the history of the decision making, although these details are very curious and instructive, but a commission composed of the “best scientific forces of the country” had been created by the beginning of August 1914 on the initiative of the Artillery Committee to organize the production of this country’s optical glass. The commission advocated beginning experiments in this specialization at the Imperial Porcelain Factory in Petrograd on the territory now occupied by the Scientific Research and Technological Institute of Optical Material Science of the S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute All-Russia Science Center.
N. N. Kachalov (subsequently a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR) was named technical manager of the work. However, as he pointed out, “the people who managed production had mostly landed their places because of family connections… the authority of science and its role in production… did not stand very high.” Nevertheless, experiments began on August 25, 1914 under the management of St. Petersburg University Professor V. E. Tishchenko, based “on the meager information concerning the technology assembled from printed sources.” The first melt of flint glass had been made up by September 4. The melting furnace did not provide the necessary conditions. However, Petrograd Polytechnic Institute Professor V. E. Grum-Grzhimaı˘lo (subsequently a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR) then undertook to construct a new furnace. Twelve melts of glass mass took place from September 1914 through September 1915 “this was as much as was allowed by the insignificant scale and equipment of the factory belonging to the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty.”
The quality of the first glasses was extremely low, although the palace department attempted to overstate what had been achieved, reporting to the sovereign that “the Imperial Porcelain Factory has become the fourth factory in the world in the fabrication of optical glass.” The first prisms for the binoculars of the Chief Artillery Directorate were fabricated in 1915. According to Academician D. S. Rozhdestvenskiı˘’s evaluation, the prisms “were quite suitable for utilization, despite the presence of striae.”

Nevertheless, to improve the quality of the glass, it was decided to acquire a license for the English patent of Chance Brothers and Co. The license was purchased with great difficulty for 600 thousand gold rubles, under the condition that “the production secrets will be known only to people with a Russian surname.”
The successful pioneering period of development was interrupted by the revolution and the civil war, but research and development in the area of optical glass began to acquire a solid scientific basis from the moment that the State Optical Institute was formed in 1918. The greatest scientists of Russia participated in establishing the production of optical glass at the Petrograd (later Leningrad) Optical Glass Factory: Academicians D. S. Rozhdestvenskiı˘, I. V. Grebenshchikov, I. V. Obreimov, V. A. Fok, A. A. Lebedev, Corresponding Members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR N. N. Kachalov, A. I. Tudorovskiı˘, etc. The alliance of outstanding scientists and engineering–technical workers and the fact that the country’s rulers understood the necessity of solving the problem of providing the USSR with optical glass gave excellent results. Already in February 1927, by decision of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy of the USSR, it had been resolved “to completely prohibit the importation of optical glass into the country.” The problem was solved.
It is necessary to point out the role of Opticheskiı˘ Zhurnal (then called Optiko-Mekhanicheskaya Promishlennost’), which since 1931 has regularly published articles and reviews in a special section on research in the area of technologies for producing optical materials and their properties. The publication in a single journal of articles by developers and researchers concerning optical materials, their producers and consumers, were useful to them and to others in all the past years. Continuing this tradition, Opticheskiı˘ Zhurnal’s editorial staff decided to devote a separate issue to the hundredth anniversary of Russian optical glass. Naturally, much has changed in the past years. Optical materials now include not only optical glasses but also optical crystals and glass–ceramics. Traditionally, although it is not quite correct, optical fibers are included among optical materials. Finally, this issue contains articles on the technology for mechanically processing optical glass and glass–ceramics. We hoped to assemble in this issue articles from the various scientific centers of St. Petersburg that work on the problems of optical materials: the Scientific Research and Technological Institute of Optical Material Science of the S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute All-Russia Science Center; the St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics, and Optics; the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University; and also the Lytkarino Optical Glass Factory, which is unique in Russia.