Three-dimensional printing of glass micro-optics

Abstract

To meet the increasing needs of high-precision glass micro-optics and address the major limitations of current threedimensional (3D) printing optics,we have developed a liquid, solvent-free, silica precursor and two-photon3Dprinting process. The printed optical elements can be fully converted to transparent inorganic glass at temperatures as low as 600Cwith a shrinkage rate of 17%.We have demonstrated the whole process, frommaterial development, printing, and performance evaluation of the printed glass micro-optics. 3D printing of glass micro-optics with isotropic shrinkage, micrometer resolution, lowpeak-To-valley deviation (>100 nm), and lowsurface roughness (>6 nm) has been achieved. The reported technique will enable the rapid prototyping of complex glass micro-optics previously impossible using conventional glass optics fabrication processes. © 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.