Abstract
Compression molding of glass optics is gradually becoming a viable fabrication technique for high precision optical lenses. However, refractive index variation was observed in compression molded glass lenses, which would contribute to image quality degradation. In this research, annealing experiments were applied to control the refractive index variation in molded glass lenses. The refractive index variations pre and post annealing experiment in molded lenses were measured by an experiment setup based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The experimental results showed that the refractive index variation can be controlled providing that a proper cooling process is applied during cooling.
Highlights
Compression molding is a thermal forming process for precision glass optics [1, 2]
By comparing experimental results of the glass lens pre and post annealing, the results showed that refractive index variation was reduced
The maximum refractive index variation was reduced about 4 × 10-4 which was more than half of the maximum variation before annealing
Summary
Compression molding is a thermal forming process for precision glass optics [1, 2]. The variation of refractive index in a molded glass lens will introduce distortion to the wave-front passing through the glass lens, which leads to image quality degradation. In order to ensure a proper optical performance of thermally formed glass lens, it is important to reduce the degree of refractive index variation in the molded glass lens. Annealing has been studied for improving the quality of glass [6,7,8,9]. Annealing of the compression molding of glass lenses was investigated in this research. In order to identify the effects of annealing on refractive index variations, computer tomography method was employed to measure the refractive index distribution in the glass lenses. By comparing experimental results of the glass lens pre and post annealing, the results showed that refractive index variation was reduced
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