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Manufacturing of a precision 3D microlens array on a steep curved substrate by injection molding process

  • Hao Zhang , Sebastian Scheiding , Lei Li , Andreas Gebhardt , Stefan Risse , Ramona Eberhardt , Andreas Tünnermann and Allen Y. Yi EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: April 2, 2013
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Advanced Optical Technologies
From the journal Advanced Optical Technologies Volume 2 Issue 3

Abstract

In this study, a high volume low cost manufacturing method for microoptical microlens arrays on steep curved substrates using a microinjection molding technique was investigated. The design of the individual lenslets was performed using ZEMAX. This 3D microlens array in this study contains 1219 microlenses that are evenly distributed on its concave surface with a high fill factor. The overall field of view of this microlens array on curved substrates is more than 104°. To complete the manufacturing process, first the mold inserts were machined using a voice coil based fast tool servo technique, then the 3D microlens arrays were injection molded. The injection molding process parameters were evaluated using both experiments and numerical simulation for best molding results. In addition, both geometrical errors and optical performance tests showed that the molded polymer microlens arrays can be used in wide angle imaging applications. This study demonstrated that this combined process is capable of fabricating high precision microlens arrays at steep curved substrates at low cost. The microlens arrays created in this study have broad applications in optical, medical and biomedical domains. The success of this study provided a feasible solution for mass production of 3D microlens arrays on arbitrary substrates.

Keywords: 3D microlens array; 3D micromachining; microinjection molding
OCIS codes: 220.0220; 120.4610; 130.3990; 160.5470; 220.4000; 230.3990
Corresponding author: Allen Y. Yi, Department of Integrated Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University, 210 Baker Systems, 1971 Neil Ave, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

This study was partially the result of collaborative efforts between the Ohio State University and Fraunhofer IOF under the Fraunhofer program ‘ProfX2’. This study was also based on the work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers CMMI-0928521 and EEC-0914790. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors would also like to acknowledge Professional Instruments in Hopkins, MN, USA for their continuous support. The authors acknowledge Donald A. Pearson II and ESDI of Tucson, AZ, USA for the software Intelliwave LE-2 used in this research. The authors would like to acknowledge Likai Li for his assistance in numerical modeling using Moldex 3D software.

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Received: 2012-10-6
Accepted: 2013-3-3
Published Online: 2013-4-2
Published in Print: 2013-06-01

©2013 by THOSS Media & De Gruyter Berlin Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/aot-2012-0061
Keywords for this article
3D microlens array; 3D micromachining; microinjection molding

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Masthead
  2. Masthead
  3. Community
  4. News from the European Optical Society
  5. Conference Notes
  6. Conference Calendar
  7. SMETHODS: Free courses on optical design
  8. Topical Issue: Microscopy Technologies
  9. Editorial
  10. New microscopes push the limits of far field microscopy
  11. Review Article
  12. Super-resolution microscopy heads towards 3D dynamics
  13. Research Articles
  14. iOCT with surgical microscopes: a new imaging during microsurgery
  15. High-resolution InGaAs sensor pushing biomedical infrared optical coherence tomography
  16. Tutorial
  17. Physical optics methods for laser and nonlinear optics simulations
  18. Research Articles
  19. Manufacturing of a precision 3D microlens array on a steep curved substrate by injection molding process
  20. Aspherical plastic lens injection molding warpage and opto-mechanical analysis
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