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EOTECH is an American company that designs, manufactures, and markets
electro-optic Electro–optics is a branch of electrical engineering, electronic engineering, materials science, and material physics involving components, electronic devices such as lasers, laser diodes, LEDs, waveguides, etc. which operate by the propa ...
and
night vision Night vision is the ability to see in low-light conditions, either naturally with scotopic vision or through a night-vision device. Night vision requires both sufficient spectral range and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night v ...
products and systems. The company is headquartered in
Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...
, Michigan. They produce
holographic weapon sight A holographic weapon sight or holographic diffraction sight is a non-magnification, magnifying gunsight that allows the user to look through a glass optical window and see a holographic reticle image superimposed at a distance on the field of view. ...
s for
small arms A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originate ...
that have been adopted by various military and law enforcement agencies as
close quarters battle Close-quarters battle (CQB), also called close-quarters combat (CQC), is a close combat situation between multiple combatants involving ranged (typically firearm-based) or melee combat. It can occur between military units, law enforcement and cr ...
firearm sights. They also have roots in the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM), a not-for-profit R&D institute. Of the many inventions by ERIM researchers, some were in the fields of
synthetic aperture radar Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or 3D reconstruction, three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target regi ...
, laser
holography Holography is a technique that allows a wavefront to be recorded and later reconstructed. It is best known as a method of generating three-dimensional images, and has a wide range of other uses, including data storage, microscopy, and interfe ...
, and aircraft
head-up display A head-up display, or heads-up display, also known as a HUD () or head-up guidance system (HGS), is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints. The origin of the name stems from a ...
s.


Products and services

EOTECH manufactures holographic weapon sights, magnified optics, and night vision sensors. EOTECH was the first company to create holographic sights, having solved the problem of wavelength instability exhibited by
laser diode file:Laser diode chip.jpg, The laser diode chip removed and placed on the eye of a needle for scale A laser diode (LD, also injection laser diode or ILD or semiconductor laser or diode laser) is a semiconductor device similar to a light-emittin ...
s. They introduced their first-generation
holographic Holography is a technique that allows a wavefront to be recorded and later reconstructed. It is best known as a method of generating three-dimensional images, and has a wide range of other uses, including data storage, microscopy, and interfe ...
weapon sight at the 1996
SHOT Show The SHOT Show, which is an acronym for "Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show", is an American annual trade fair, trade show for the shooting sports, hunting, outdoor recreation, and firearm manufacturing industry (economics), industries. The ...
, which won the Optic of the Year Award from the Shooting Industry Academy of Excellence. Their second-generation holographic weapon sight was released in 2000 and won the same award in 2001. They developed achromatic holographic optics that compensate for any change in the emission wavelength of the laser diode with temperature. The sights are designed to be mounted on small arms via a MIL-STD-1913 Picatinny or
Weaver rail A Weaver rail mount is a system to connect telescopic sights (often via a scope mount) and other accessories to firearms and certain crossbows. It uses a pair of parallel rails and several slots perpendicular to these rails. The later Picatinny ...
, and powered by either AA, N or CR123 size batteries for up to 1,100 hours of runtime. Sights display either a 65
MoA Moa are extinct giant flightless birds native to New Zealand. Moa or MOA may also refer to: Arts and media * Metal Open Air, a Brazilian heavy metal festival * MOA Museum of Art in Japan * The Moas, New Zealand film awards People * Moa ...
ring with a 1 MoA dot in the center, a single 1 MoA dot, a vertical series of dots for bullet drop compensation in certain calibers, or, in the case of their
less-lethal Non-lethal weapons, also called nonlethal weapons, less-lethal weapons, less-than-lethal weapons, non-deadly weapons, compliance weapons, or pain-inducing weapons are weapons intended to be less likely to kill a living target than convention ...
sights, a flared vase-like sight to assist in the aiming of bean-bag or rubber ball rounds commonly used in riot control. Bushnell marketed the non-military versions under the brand name "Holosight". The EOTECH 553 is in U.S. military service under SU-231/PEQ and M553 in the commercial market. More recently, the U.S. Military has also purchased and issued the newer EOTECH EXPS3 model, the SU-231A/PEQ. The U.S. military has also accepted a specialty sight for the grenade launcher with the SU-253/PEQ. Their first holographic sight was introduced in January 1996. An
archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a Bow and arrow, bow to shooting, shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting ...
sight was discontinued in November 2004, in line with the company's desire to concentrate on military and law-enforcement products.


Criticism and controversy

In 2015, the U.S. government sued EOTech's former parent company,
L-3 L3, L03, L.3 or L-3 may refer to: In arts and media * Live, Loud & Local, a show launched by band The Matches in the Oakland, California region * '' Leprechaun 3'', a film * L3-37, a droid in ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' * Lower third, in televisi ...
, for civil fraud, accusing it of covering up defects in the sights it knew about as early as 2006. The first defect was "thermal drift", which causes the aiming point to shift in high or low temperatures by as much as 12" at 300 yards. The second was "moisture incursion" or "reticle fade", which causes the viewing glass to fog up and the aiming point to lose brightness. L-3 settled for $25.6 million and fixed the "moisture incursion" defect. There was no report of a cure for the thermal drift defect. Thousands of L3's sights are used by federal law enforcement and military, including
special operations forces Special forces or special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
.


Corporate affairs

In 2018, EOTECH was awarded a $26.3 million five-year contract from the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to provide close-quarters sights and clip-on magnifiers for the Miniature Aiming System–Day Optics suite. In 2020, EOTECH officially separated from L-3 Technologies and was purchased by Project Echo Holdings dba American Holoptics, a subsidiary of Koucar Management. In 2021, EOTECH acquired the Photonics division of Intevac.


Technology

Unlike
reflector sight A reflector sight or reflex sight is an optical sight that allows the user to look through a partially reflecting glass element and see an aiming point or some image (helping to aim the device, to which the sight is attached, on the target) sup ...
s, the holographic weapon sight does not use a reflected reticle system. Instead, a representative reticle is recorded in
three-dimensional space In geometry, a three-dimensional space (3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a mathematical space in which three values ('' coordinates'') are required to determine the position of a point. Most commonly, it is the three- ...
onto
holographic Holography is a technique that allows a wavefront to be recorded and later reconstructed. It is best known as a method of generating three-dimensional images, and has a wide range of other uses, including data storage, microscopy, and interfe ...
film that is part of the optical viewing window. Like the reflector sight, the holographic sight's reticle uses
collimated light A collimated beam of light or other electromagnetic radiation has parallel ray (optics), rays, and therefore will spread minimally as it propagates. A laser beam is an archetypical example. A perfectly collimated light beam, with no beam divergen ...
and therefore has an aim point that can move with eye position. This is compensated for by having a holographic image set at a finite distance, in this case, around 100 yards. The sight's
parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different sightline, lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to perspective (graphica ...
due to eye movement is the size of the optical window at close range and diminishes to zero at the set distance.ar15.com "Parallax on an Eotech?" - Tech support question - Parallax issues with 550 series- ''"The sights do have parallax error of +/- 1.2 " or +/- 0.6" (1.2 " side to side). The site is designed to be parallax free at long distances, 100 yards to infinity. At close range, there will be a parallax error equaling to the width of the window, which is 33mm or 1.3". A perfectly aligned sight will have a parallax error of 1.3" at 10 yds and 17 ft. As you move further away from 10 to 40 yards, parallax becomes less and is almost zero at 50 yards."''
/ref> To compensate for any change in the laser wavelength, the EOTECH sight employs a holography grating that disperses the laser light by an equal amount but in the opposite direction as the hologram forming the aiming reticle. The result is a reticle that is stable with the temperature change. One requirement of holographic projection is a
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radi ...
. Lasers use more power and more complex driving electronics than an
LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...
of an equivalent brightness, reducing the amount of time a holographic sight can run on a single set of batteries.


References


External links

* {{Official website Companies based in Ann Arbor, Michigan Firearm sights Optics manufacturing companies American companies established in 1995