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2018
Conference Paper
Titel
Precision glass molding of fused silica optics
Abstract
The range of applications for photonic systems, which includes industrial production as well as medicine technology, is still often limited by the employed beam guiding optics. Fused silica is an alternative optical material, providing better transmission properties and a higher resistance when it comes to high radiation intensities. However, currently there is no cost-efficient technique available for manufacturing complex-shaped fused silica optics. On that account, this work focuses on precision glass molding of fused silica optics that allows the replicative manufacturing of high-quality optics in a one-cycle molding process. Due to the high molding temperature of up to 1400 °C, a crucial aspect of fused silica molding is to identify thermal resistant molding tool materials. For this, heating tests were performed at temperatures up to 1360 °C. Experimental results illustrate that precious metal as well nitride-based protective layers, established in molding common optical glass and deposited on SiC substrates, fail rapidly due to the high thermal load. Instead, first pre-tests demonstrate a promising thermal resistance of a carbon-based graphene protective layer.
Author(s)
Language
English