Four-axis single-point diamond machining of arrays of miniature lenses

Abstract

Four-axis single point diamond machining is a diamond machining technique recently introduced as a higher speed alternative to 3-axis micro-milling for the fabrication of arrays of spherical miniature lenses. For some applications of lens arrays, aspheric lenses are preferred over spherical lenses. In this study, an array of aspheric lens surfaces that were designed for an array microscope for digital pathology were fabricated, and the surface quality was found to have the same surface accuracy as previous experiments with 4-axis SPDM with an “open loop” tool path correction process. The open loop process demonstrated here will lead to additional time savings when fabricating an array microscope compared to the more common closed loop compensation processes. This study also shows that the 4-axis SPDM is capable of producing arbitrary surfaces with high surface quality, enabling technologies such as array microscopy.