Rapid Fabrication of Silica Microlens Arrays via Glass 3D Printing

Rapid manufacturing of high purity fused silica glass micro-optics using a filament-based glass 3D printer has been demonstrated. A multilayer 5 × 5 microlens array was printed and subsequently characterized, showing fully dense lenses with uniform focal lengths and good imaging performance. A surface roughness on the order of R a = 0.12 nm was achieved. Printing time for each lens was <10 s. Creating arrays with multifocal imaging capabilities was possible by individually varying the number of printed layers and radius for each lens, effectively changing the lens height and curvature. Glass 3D printing is shown in this study to be a versatile approach for fabricating silica micro-optics suitable for rapid prototyping or manufacturing.