Additive Manufacturing of Inorganic Transparent Materials for Advanced Optics

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology offers the capability to use multiple glass materials and to print complex freeform shape designs and gradient index (GRIN) optics. Although AM is widely used to print commercial 3-dimension metal and plastic/polymer parts, there are no viable commercial solutions for AM of inorganic transparent glasses for high-quality optical components.The proposed work will design, develop and demonstrate the feasibility of an innovative AM approach capable to produce freeform and GRIN optics with good optical properties, full densification, and smooth surface finish typical of current optical lenses made of inorganic glasses. The new AM process will be tested with inorganic glass nanoparticles that can be used to develop the prescribed achromatic lens with a transmission window from 0.65 to 1.3 micron and athermalized from -54ºC to +90ºC. Phase I effort will include the fabrication plan of a representative achromatic lens prototype with specifications provided in the topic description.