Mission
FabuLens – a subsidiary of the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovations SPRIN-D – is developing the novel manufacturing technology LENSCURE™ in cooperation with mcd – modern camera designs GmbH. This process is based on UV-replication which allows high-precision polymer optical components to be manufactured in large numbers in a cost- and energy-optimized way.
Our ultimate goal is to revolutionize high-volume production in optics and establish such manufacturing lines again in Germany and Europe.
The current standard process for such optics currently used is injection molding. Here, polymers such as PMMA or Zeonex are melted at high temperatures, injected into the mold under high pressure, and then cooled down again. This requires a large number of systems under cleanroom conditions and a lot of energy. By converting the process to one at room temperature, increasing parallelization and thus requiring fewer machines, we reduce energy consumption to up to five percent of the original value.
Our new process revolutionizes the manufacturing process for miniaturized, high-precision imaging optics. It combines the advantages of optical precision injection molding with the scaling capabilities of wafer-level optics, which has its origin in semiconductor manufacturing.
The idea
We have developed a way to combine the advantages of injection molding with those of wafer-level optics – without compromising on optical performance.
We exploit a UV replication technology, which allows up to a thousand monolithic, aspherical lenses made of polymer to be produced simultaneously in a single step – in a quality and precision that is required for imaging applications. As a result, these lenses can be realized in a cost-efficient way and then are used in cheap high-volume products.
On the other hand, low tooling costs allow economic production even of small quantities. This makes our technology an enabling-one for many other optical innovations before actually being products or smaller volume innovative and important products e.g. in medical applications.
WAFER-LEVEL OPTICS
- High Temperature Polymers
- High parallelization (for production and integration)
PRECISION OPTICAL INJECTION MOLDING
- Arbitrary lens shapes
- Many lenses per objective
- High resolution
Our chances
HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGING
Meniscus-shaped lenses
- No glass substrates in the optical path – optimal for the design of high-end objective lenses
Small form errors at large sag heights of the lenses and thus comparatively large lens diameters
- Shrinkage compensation
Aspherical lenseses
- Almost any shape – ideal for correcting aberrations
Materials with different Abbe numbers for achromatization
- Crown and flint materials available
Manufacturing at room temperature
- Simple equipment + low-cost tools
- Low initial costs / “NRE“
- Cost-efficient even for small production quantities
- Low energy consumption
Parallelized batch process
- Economic production of very large quantities
- Easily scalable production volumes
High-temperaturestable polymers
- Can be used in applications where otherwise polymer optics are prohibited due to critical temperature behavior
- Simplified integration of camera modules due to usability of reflow soldering processes
Cost advantage for small and large quantities.
Drastically reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the manufacturing process.