Abstract: Holographic gunsight was first conceived in the 1970s and prototypes were fabricated using a He-Ne laser as the illuminating source. The laser source was too costly and fragile and these prototype units were too bulky to be viable as a commercial product. With the advent of low cost laser diodes, EOTech introduced into the commercial market a compact holographic gunsight for small arms in 1996 which has since become one of the most popular gunsight in the U.S. and in Europe. In this paper, the design of the second generation holographic gunsight is described. The optical path travels predominantly in the vertical direction which reduces the length and the weight of the sight by a third. The optical design challenges include the generation of a stable holographic image with changes in the laser emission wavelength, circularization of the laser elliptical beam profile, and the production of high quality optics at low cost. The opto-mechanical design challenges include very fine angular adjustments, stability over large temperature range and the ability to withstand the recoil of powerful handguns. !0
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