conventional lensmaking is a grind — literally. One starts with a piece of glass, scrubs it against an abrasive surface to wear away the excess bits, as well as ultimately gets it to just the best shape as well as size for the job. Whether done by device or by hand, it’s a time-consuming process, as well as it sure seems like there’s got to be a much better way.

Thanks to [Moran Bercovici] at Technion: Israel Institute of Technology, there is. He leads a team that utilizes fluids to produce complex optics rapidly as well as cheaply, as well as the process looks incredibly simple. It’s something akin to the injection-molded lenses that are typical in mass-produced optical equipment, however with a twist — there’s no mold per se. Instead, a UV-curable resin is injected into a 3D printed constraining sound that’s sitting inside a storage tank of fluid. The resin takes a shape identified by the geometry of the constraining sound as well as gravitational forces, hydrostatic forces, as well as surface tension forces acting on the resin. when the resin archives the best shape, a blast of UV light cures it. Presto, immediate lenses!

The interface between the resin as well as the restraining fluid makes for extremely smooth lenses; they quote surface roughness in the variety of one nanometer. The utilize of the fluid bed to constrain the lens likewise implies that this technique can be scaled as much as lenses 200-mm in diameter or more. The paper is not completely remove on what fluids are being used, however when we pinged our good friend [Zachary Tong] about this, he stated he’s heard that the resin is an optical-grade UV adhesive, while the restraining fluid is a mix of glycerol as well as water.

We’re keen to see [Zach] provide this a try — after all, he did something similar lately, albeit on a much smaller scale.