Laser glass deposition of spheres for printing micro lenses

Abstract Similar to components in electronics industry, optical systems are also increasingly miniaturized. The integration of functions as well as the production of optical freeform surfaces, which are not manufactural with conventional manufacturing processes, are of special interest. One method for additive manufacturing of glass components is the Laser Glass Deposition (LGD) by using a CO2 laser source (10.6 µm). This allows printing functional waveguides in individual shapes. The process is also able to generate spheres for e.g. a planar lens matrix. In this paper the reproducible controlled deposition of spheres using a fused silica fiber with a diameter of 400 µm is investigated. For this purpose, a parameter variation of the fiber feeding speed and laser power is carried out to produce spheres of different sizes and in different arrangements. Finally, the optical and stress-mechanical properties of the samples are investigated.