Room‐Temperature Molding of Complex‐Shaped Transparent Fused Silica Lenses

Abstract The high hardness, brittleness, and thermal resistance impose significant challenges in the scalable manufacturing of fused silica lenses, which are widely used in numerous applications. Taking advantage of the nanocomposites by stirring silica nanopowders with photocurable resins, the newl...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ya Xu, Xiaotong Du, Zhenhua Wang, Hua Liu, Peng Huang, Suet To, LiMin Zhu, Zhiwei Zhu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2023-12-01
Series:Advanced Science
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202304756
Description
Summary:Abstract The high hardness, brittleness, and thermal resistance impose significant challenges in the scalable manufacturing of fused silica lenses, which are widely used in numerous applications. Taking advantage of the nanocomposites by stirring silica nanopowders with photocurable resins, the newly emerged low‐temperature pre‐shaping technique provides a paradigm shift in fabricating transparent fused silica components. However, preparing the silica slurry and carefully evaporating the organics may significantly increase the process complexity and decrease the manufacturing efficiency for the nanocomposite‐based technique. By directly pressing pure silica nanopowders against the complex‐shaped metal molds in minutes, this work reports an entirely different room‐temperature molding method capable of mass replication of complex‐shaped silica lenses without organic additives. After sintering the replicated lenses, fully transparent fused silica lenses with spherical, arrayed, and freeform patterns are generated with nanometric surface roughness and well‐reserved mold shapes, demonstrating a scalable and cost‐effective route surpassing the current techniques for the manufacturing of high‐quality fused silica lenses.
ISSN:2198-3844