FEATURE 3D-PRINTED OPTICS
Building lenses
layer- by- layer
Matthew Dale looks at the latest advances being made in additive methods for producing optics
S
ince its invention, 3D printing has been used to make an increasing range of objects, from prosthetic limbs to fully functioning weapons and vehicles. But what is of particular relevance to the optics industry is the emergence of additive manufacturing processes for making high- quality polymer optics that are light-weight, cheaper and easier to produce than their glass counterparts.
3D printing is also enabling the production of plastic optics that are more complex and
24 ELECTRO OPTICS l OCTOBER 2016
much smaller in size – lenses less than 500µm in diameter can now be manufactured and, as a result, are becoming more commonplace in high-end applications such as LEDs, phone cameras, biometrics and, thanks to a project at the University of Stuttgart, soon even in endoscopes.
For most optical applications, glass is the preferred material because of its superior optical properties. However, optics manufacturers are limited in the sizes and shapes they can produce with glass. ‘Glass has very positive aspects for optics functionality. A disadvantage is that we cannot additively manufacture optics in glass directly, but only in photopolymers,’ said Dr Fabian Niesler, head of applications and processes at Nanoscribe. ‘At the scales and dimensions that we are working at, it’s very hard to produce optical components from glass at all,’ he said.
The main advantage of additive manufacturing is that it offers greater levels of design freedom and precision compared with traditional manufacturing processes. ‘3D printing… provides the benefit to produce very high quality polymer micro-optics directly,’ Niesler added. ‘With 3D printing, we have almost no restrictions on the shape of optics, because of the way they are produced. You can fabricate micro-optical components that cannot be fabricated with any other method.’
In addition, the technique can be used to make delicate or complex optical systems that would otherwise be challenging to produce and require multiple fabrication steps. For example, the same printer used to make a single lens can be used to fabricate complex multi-lens systems. ‘When you change something in the design, you don’t have to change the tool. You have the same printer,
@electrooptics |
www.electrooptics.com
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