Coated Silicon Mold for Miniature Glass Optics Production

The conventional precision glass molding process is difficult to produce miniature optics as it involves infra-red heating which requires long thermal cycle time and will result with higher thermal deformation which will affect the accuracy of finishing product.

Rather than using the expensive tungsten carbides for hot molding, a special technique is developed to fabricate a graphene like material coated on a silicon die based on single point diamond turning. The glass workpiece is heated up directly via the coated silicon die and therefore it is not necessary to heat up the whole mold setup. A control and monitoring software is also developed to provide accurate and on-lie contrail of the process parameters.

Comparing with the existing commercial glass molding machines, this design is environmentally friendly and cost effective and can produce a wide range of high-quality precision optical components to replace optical plastics, such as smartphones and micro projectors, compound eyes for 3D camera, Fresnel lens for solar cell applications, and micro-lens array for laser optical systems.