Molding aspheric lenses for low-cost production versus diamond turned lenses

Gabriel Cogburn; Louis Mertus; Alan Symmons

doi:10.1117/12.850518

3 May 2010 Molding aspheric lenses for low-cost production versus diamond turned lenses

Gabriel Cogburn, Louis Mertus, Alan Symmons

Proceedings Volume 7660, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXVI; 766020 (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.850518
Event: SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing, 2010, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

As lens design using aspheric diffractive lenses has become more popular in designing faster, low F/# infrared (IR) optical systems; the increased quantities manufactured of these glass lenses is following suit. Historically, Single Point Diamond Turning (SPDT) has been the method of choice in producing high quality glass aspheric and diffractive lenses, but with the volume of lenses produced and technological advances in Precision Molded Optics (PMO), it is now becoming highly cost efficient to use molding as a means of producing these glass optic lenses. This paper will discuss lens shapes, tolerances, present and future optic lens sizes that are being done using PMO as well as present an experiment conducted comparing the surface quality of a chalcogenide lens manufactured with SPDT and PMO.

Citation Download Citation

Gabriel Cogburn, Louis Mertus, and Alan Symmons "Molding aspheric lenses for low-cost production versus diamond turned lenses", Proc. SPIE 7660, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXVI, 766020 (3 May 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.850518

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