The Technology
Various methods are being used for lenses fabrication, however these are effective usually for large-scale fabrication, where the cost and time spent on the initial mold is justified.
Another method is depositing a finite volume of a liquid (e.g. polymer droplet) on a flat surface, and polymerizing it, yet this method is limited to very small sizes. The buoyancy lens fabrication system is comprised of a liquid chamber, an immersion liquid, a lens liquid, and a thin shape-controlling pad. The entire chamber is filled with the immersion liquid of density ρimm. A finite volume of lens liquid of known density ρlen is injected on top of the pad, and by the choice of above-mentioned properties – wets it entirely. The volume of the lens liquid, the shape of the pad, and the density of the immersion liquid determine a unique solution for the shape of the resulting droplet.
Advantages
- Fast and simple method for fabrication
- Large variety of optical components at any size and scale
- No post-processing is required
- Compatible with a larger number of optical polymers
- The lens can be made of a curing material (e.g. a polymer) and solidified in space to yield a permanent lens
- Method for fabricating a lens in space
Applications and Opportunities
- Home device for contact lens printing
- Device for rapid fabrication of lenses for lab settings
- Fabrication of specialized lenses, specifically large-size optical
- components for industrial and research applications
- Any space-based optical device: Telescopes, Earth-imaging satellites
- Underwater deployment
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