SBIR Phase II: Carbide Bonded Graphene Coating for Enhanced Glass Molding

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is in significantly lowering the cost of high precision glass molding through a low-cost carbide-bonded graphene coating. In optical industry, optical glasses have been the de facto choice. These lenses are used in cameras, projection systems and military equipment. However, cost and other considerations frequently lead to the choice of injection molded plastic lenses with their acceptable but lower image quality. The innovative carbide-bonded graphene coatings are both low cost and durable, and could allow use of precision optical glasses in places where plastic products are used today. The coatings also have the potential to spread to other markets such as advanced thermal management, next generation electronic components, and biosensors based on the unique combination of excellent mechanical, physical, optical transparency and biocompatibility properties together with tunable optoelectronic characteristics. Such products may greatly improve our daily lives in areas such as portable electronics and optics, energy saving and green manufacturing. This project will further advance the chemically vapor deposited carbide-bonded graphene coating process demonstrated during Phase I that involved using silicon wafers with micro/nano-patterning. With the help of our industrial partners we now intend to scale the technology to the commercial level. The process development is targeted to developing low-cost and mass-producible high precision glass molding, micro-optics, and NIR aspheric optics for cell phones and high performance laser collimators. These activities would also enhance our understanding of carbide-bonded graphene coating technology.