Glass molding of 3mm diameter aspheric plano-convex lens

The many industries and research fields have demands for small scale optical systems. To satisfy the demands, many studies are conducted and the miniaturization technologies have been developed. The optical lens is directly related to the optical systems and a key component for the miniaturization. So the aspheric surface which can replace multispherical lenses is applied to the optical lens. And fabrication methods to reduce the diameter of the lens have been developed. The glass molding pressing (GMP) process is an attractive method to fabricate aspheric lens among the lens manufacturing processes. Because the GMP process has advantages of productivity, repeatability and so on. In this study, a 3 mm diameter aspheric plano-convex lens was fabricated using the GMP process. The GMP process was divided into heating, pressing, annealing and cooling. And the process was conducted using a commercial glass molding machine. Mold tools consist of an upper and a lower mold insert, an inner and an outer guide. The aspheric and the flat surfaces of the mold inserts were coated with ta-C to prevent the sticking of the glass to the mold. The surfaces of molded lens were measured by white interferometry and surface profilometer. The height and the diameter were measured using optical microscopy. As results, the aspheric surface of the lens was 5.1187 nm in Ra and 0.242 um in Pt. And the flat surface was 2.6697 nm in Ra and 0.13 um in Pt. The height and the diameter were 1.935 mm and 3.002 mm respectively.