High-Quality Large-Magnification Polymer Lens from Needle Moving Technique and Thermal Assisted Moldless Fabrication Process

PLoS One. 2016 Jan 14;11(1):e0146414. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0146414. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

The need of mobile microscope is escalating as well as the demand of high quality optical components in low price. We report here a novel needle moving technique to fabricate milli-size lens together with thermal assist moldless method. Our proposed protocol is able to create a high tensile strength structure of the lens and its base which is beneficial for exploiting in convertinga smart phone to be a digital microscope. We observe that no bubble trapped in a lens when this technique is performed which can overcome a challenge problem found in a typical dropping technique. We demonstrate the symmetry, smoothness and micron-scale resolution of the fabricated structure. This proposed technique is promising to serve as high quality control mass production without any expensive equipment required.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Equipment Design
  • Lenses*
  • Microscopy / instrumentation*
  • Microscopy / standards*
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Polymers*

Substances

  • Polymers

Grants and funding

Support was provided by the National Electronics and Computer Technology center, grant number P1451286 [http://www.nectec.or.th]. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.