Fabrication of optical components using a consumer-grade lithographic printer

Berglund, Gregory; Tkaczyk, Tomasz S.

doi:10.1364/oe.27.030405

Cited by 37 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Rapid-prototyping additive manufacturing of optical systems and components has the potential to reduce this price and availability gap. Using commercially available consumer-grade stereolithography (SLA) 3D printing technology, the creation of individual optical elements such as plano-convex lenses, solar-concentrator arrays and mirrors [1,2] has been successfully demonstrated at a fraction of the off-the-shelf cost, whilst providing comparable optical quality and significant free-form customization potential.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These include sanding and polishing the optical element with finer and finer abrasive paper [7] or additively filling the layer steps. The latter is done through coating processes to achieve an inverse structure for re-moulding, or to produce the optical part directly if transparent resins and coating materials are used as fillers [1,2] . Although polishing the printed parts is the simplest technique, it is laborious and cannot easily be employed for more complex geometries or free-form surface areas, thereby negating the advantages of cost-efficient 3D-printing over traditional manufacturing of optical components such as glass lenses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

3D printing optical components for microscopy using a desktop 3D printer

Christopher

Tinning

Uttamchandani

et al. 2022

MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems XXI

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this work, we present the results of using a commercially available SLA printer for the fabrication of a range of designs of optical components. The optical properties are compared to off-the-shelf optics, including a detailed analysis of optical transmission, part uniformity and surface quality. A post-processing refinement step is introduced whose results are benchmarked against off-the-shelf polished glass lenses to exemplify sub-hundred nanometre surface uniformity with minimal surface defects, and transmission properties as high as 85% at 638 nm for a 1 mm thick optical block without antireflection coatings.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D printing optical components for microscopy using a desktop 3D printer

Christopher

Tinning

Uttamchandani

et al. 2022

MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems XXI

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thus, SLA is widespread in aerospace, medicine, and optics. However, a major drawback in current 3D printing as well as SLA is the relatively poor surface quality resulting from the layer-by-layer method of the SLA process and the resultant "stair-stepping" effect [14]. To reduce the "stair-stepping" effect of printed optical components, some methods, including post-coating [15], meniscus equilibrium post-curing [16,17], and the grayscale photopolymerization method [18,19], have been proposed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D Printing of Customized Aspheric Lenses for Imaging

Zhu¹,

Zhang

et al. 2021

Polymers

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A simple and efficient process for fabricating customized aspheric lenses is reported, in which a stereolithographic 3D printer combined with the meniscus equilibrium post-curing technique is employed. Two kinds of UV-curable resins, DentaClear and HEMA, were used for printing aspheric lenses in our experiments. The printed DentaClear lens featured low surface profile deviation of ~74 and showed satisfactory optical imaging resolution of 50.80 lp/mm, i.e., 4.92 . The surface roughness of the printed lens with DentaClear was measured to be around 2 nm with AFM. The surface roughness was improved as a result of post-curing, which reduced the ripples on printed lens surfaces. In contrast, the printed HEMA lens exhibited a significant stair-stepping effect with a large surface profile deviation of ~150. The ripples were somewhat apparent even if the printed HEMA lens surface was smoothed by means of post-curing. No sharp image can be obtained with the HEMA lens in the resolution testing. The composition of HEMA resin may be the reason for the relatively poor surface quality and optical properties.

show abstract

“…Filament extrusion or melt-type techniques, such as fused deposition modelling (FDM) of thermoplastic materials, are the most popular. Its use has already been shown for the fabrication of optical components, such as fibers [26], lenses [27], photonic bridges [28], etc. Furthermore, its use has also been reported for the fabrication of a loss-tunable LPG, by mechanically pressing a periodically grooved 3D printed plate onto an optical fiber [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

UV Inscription and Pressure Induced Long-Period Gratings through 3D Printed Amplitude Masks

Oliveira

Sousa

Rocha

et al. 2021

Sensors

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this work, we demonstrate for the first time the capability to inscribe long-period gratings (LPGs) with UV radiation using simple and low cost amplitude masks fabricated with a consumer grade 3D printer. The spectrum obtained for a grating with 690 µm period and 38 mm length presented good quality, showing sharp resonances (i.e., 3 dB bandwidth < 3 nm), low out-of-band loss (~0.2 dB), and dip losses up to 18 dB. Furthermore, the capability to select the resonance wavelength has been demonstrated using different amplitude mask periods. The customization of the masks makes it possible to fabricate gratings with complex structures. Additionally, the simplicity in 3D printing an amplitude mask solves the problem of the lack of amplitude masks on the market and avoids the use of high resolution motorized stages, as is the case of the point-by-point technique. Finally, the 3D printed masks were also used to induce LPGs using the mechanical pressing method. Due to the better resolution of these masks compared to ones described on the state of the art, we were able to induce gratings with higher quality, such as low out-of-band loss (0.6 dB), reduced spectral ripples, and narrow bandwidths (~3 nm).

show abstract

Fabrication of optical components using a consumer-grade lithographic printer

Cited by 37 publications

References 22 publications

3D printing optical components for microscopy using a desktop 3D printer

3D printing optical components for microscopy using a desktop 3D printer

3D Printing of Customized Aspheric Lenses for Imaging

UV Inscription and Pressure Induced Long-Period Gratings through 3D Printed Amplitude Masks

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About