Design and Fabrication of Low Cost Infrared Optical System Using Precision Glass Molding Lens Made by Chalcogenide Glass

Abstract

In this paper, for low cost infrared optical equipment, we design and fabricate an infrared optical system for an uncooled detector using PGM(Precision Glass Molding) lenses. The designed infrared optical system has a good athermalization, and the material of all of its lenses is a chalcogenide glass suitable for the PGM method. In addition, we also fabricate the same infrared optical system using SPDT(Single Point Diamond Turning) lenses in order to measure the optical performance of PGM lenses. We measure the MTF(Modulation Transfer Function) of the two infrared optical systems which use the PGM lenses and the SPDT lenses. And then we compare and analyze the images of them both. As a result, we find that they have only a very small difference in optical performance. If the use of PGM lenses increases, we expect to reduce the cost of infrared optical equipment.