Smaller and smaller, ever more precise – these are the demands that are being placed on high-quality lenses for use in digital cameras, cell phone and video cameras and mini projectors, for instance. There is also a rising demand for spherical lenses, aspheres and discs with diameters of less than a millimeter in fields like endoscopy, microscopy and telecommunications.
Effective immediately, SCHOTT will be offering glass rods with diameters of less than 1 mm and up to 1000 mm in length, in addition to its existing shapes, in order to further support the miniaturization of optical applications. In addition, developments aimed at being able to provide conical rods, prisms, tubes and right angle designs, as well as standardized round rods, are already underway.
Efficient manufacturing of small optical components
The products that are now being offered include rods made of optical glasses, like LASF 35, for instance, which has an extremely high index of refraction (nd = 2.02204; vd = 29.06), as well as low Tg glasses that are well suited for precision molding processes. Other types of glasses are available upon request.
The length of the rods enables considerably higher yields, while the smaller diameter results in less loss of material during manufacturing of smaller components. In fact, the fire-polished surface of the rods is already suitable for a variety of applications. After all, the new dimensions of the rod ensure easy processing and considerably reduce the processing time.
Expansion of the low Tg glass product line
Besides the new shapes, SCHOTT has also expanded its portfolio of so-called low Tg glasses that have low transformation temperatures. These can be precisely shaped at temperatures of below 550°C and thus enable- mass production of extremely small optical components in an efficient manner.
In addition to the already well-established P and N glasses, the following glass types now successfully qualify for use in precision molding: N-KZFS2, N-KZFS4, N-KZFS5, N-KZFS8, N-LAF33, N-LASF46B and SF57. The glass type N-LASF46A has also been further developed. Effective immediately, the N-LASF46B type (nd = 1.90366; vd = 31.32) is available with considerably improved transmission inside the blue spectral range.
“True Color”: Low Tg glasses for the field of life sciences
The listed glass types N-KZFS4, N-KZFS5, N-KZFS8 belong to the special short flint glasses that SCHOTT offers that are mainly characterized by a profound deviation of the partial dispertion from the normal line. They feature particularly high transmission within the blue-violet spectral range combined with a remarkable low fluorescence at an excitation wavelength of 365 nm.
The glasses that SCHOTT also refers to as “True Color” glasses are being used more and more frequently in the fluorescence microscopy because they are ideally suited for realizing correction apochromatic designs. Calcium fluoride is yet another material that SCHOTT Advanced Optics offers that is traditionally used for color correction.
All of these materials will be on exhibit at the SCHOTT booth B2.320.
