Microlens fabrication with fiber laser induced thermal-mechanical plastic forming method

Abstract

Optical fiber laser and its application research become one of focuses in recent years, for its specific high beam quality characteristics. The current microlens processing methods involve in many steps, long processing period. This paper reported a new fabrication method of refractive microlens with fiber laser. The mechanism of obtained spherical surface on PMMA material was based on the laser-induced local thermal plastics deformation. The experiment setup was constructed, involving a fiber laser, a focus lens, a work piece bearing stage, a viewing microscope. We directly made the fiber laser irradiating on the transparent polymer plate, while controlling the defocused distance, laser power, and exposing time, and succeeded in producing microlens with diameter and surface curvature size from several hundred micrometers to millimeters. We performed the orthogonal design test and made its data analysis. By doping with the experimental data, the main influential factors of obtained refractive microlens were match up with curve fitting. The research results show that the fiber laser output power has the extinct effect on the produced microlens parameters, whereas the irradiating time has subordinate affection and the defocused distance has scarcely any. The relationship formulae between the optical fiber laser processing parameters and lens parameters were acquired.Optical fiber laser and its application research become one of focuses in recent years, for its specific high beam quality characteristics. The current microlens processing methods involve in many steps, long processing period. This paper reported a new fabrication method of refractive microlens with fiber laser. The mechanism of obtained spherical surface on PMMA material was based on the laser-induced local thermal plastics deformation. The experiment setup was constructed, involving a fiber laser, a focus lens, a work piece bearing stage, a viewing microscope. We directly made the fiber laser irradiating on the transparent polymer plate, while controlling the defocused distance, laser power, and exposing time, and succeeded in producing microlens with diameter and surface curvature size from several hundred micrometers to millimeters. We performed the orthogonal design test and made its data analysis. By doping with the experimental data, the main influential factors of obtained refractive microlens we...