This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 7788, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction, and the Conference Committee listing.

We introduce a simple yet efficient approach for nanoimprinting sub-50 nm dimensions starting from a low molecular weight plasticized polymer melt. This technique enabled us to successfully imprint versatile large area nanopatterns with high degrees of fidelity and rational control over the residual layers. The key advantage is its reliability in printing versatile nanostructures and nanophotonic devices doped with organic dyes owing to its low processing temperature. Since nanopatterns can be fabricated easily at low costs, this approach offers an easy pathway for achieving excellent nanoimprinted structures for a variety of photonic, electronic and biological research and applications.

Graded-index rod lenses have been widely used in various optoelectronic devices such as planar waveguide lasers and external-cavity semiconductor lasers in a new way of cylindrical lenses. In this article, an analytic calculation model of ray trajectories is set up by fitting the data of ray trajectories obtained by numerical ray tracing. Then, a parabolic formula of a ray trajectory is developed by a comparing calculation results. The formula is proved to be reliable by calculation error analysis. It is demonstrated that this formula could improve efficiency of numerical calculation and could be helpful for widening their application range.

Wafer-level lens module comprising of a glass lens as well as polymer lenses is developed for 5 mega-pixel mobile phone camera. A few institutes and companies have been tried wafer-level lens modules so far, but all of them are made of only UV curable polymer lenses which have the limitation in resolving power. We designed and fabricated waferlevel lens module which comprises of a glass lens and two UV curable polymer lenses. Glass lenses are molded one by one and reconstructed as an array on a wafer by the specially designed precision alignment technique. Polymer lenses are fabricated by typical replication and UV curing process. Optical evaluation is carried out and it is shown that the quality of the images captured by the fabricated wafer-level lens module is comparable with that of a commercial 5 mega pixel phone camera. It is expected that the hybrid type wafer level lens module (with glass and polymer lenses) is a promising solution for the high resolution and low cost phone camera in the future.

Precision polymer optics is a key enabling technology allowing the deployment of sophisticated devices with increasingly complex optics on a cost competitive basis. This is possible because of the incredible versatility that polymer optics offers the designer. The unique nature of injection molding demands a very disciplined approach during the component design and development phase. All too often this process is poorly understood. We will discuss best practices when working with a polymer optics manufacturer. This will be done through an examination of the process of creating state-of-the-art polymer optics and a review of the cost tradeoffs between design tolerances, production volumes, and mold cavitation.

This paper investigates the mold design and related effects on an aspheric projector lens for Head Up Display (HUD) with injection molding process. Injection flow analysis with a commercial software, Moldex3D has been used to simulate this projector lens for filling, packing, shrinkage, and flow-induced residual stress. This projector lens contains of variant thickness due to different aspheric design on both surfaces. Defects may be induced as the melt front from the gate into the cavity with jet-flow phenomenon, short shot, weld line, and even shrinkage. Thus, this paper performs a gate design to find the significant parameters including injection velocity, melt temperature, and mold temperature. After simulation by the Moldex3D, gate design for the final assembly of Head Up Display (HUD) has been obtained and then experimental tests have been proceeded for verification of short-shot, weight variation, and flow-induced stress. Moreover, warpage analysis of the Head Up Display (HUD) can be integrated with the optical design specification in future work.

We report on the development and experimental analysis of novel freeform polymer lenses for the uniform illumination of a target area using high-brightness LED. In a first step, the LED module was centered over the illuminated area and the two faces of a freeform lens were designed for homogeneous and efficient light distribution. In a second step, the system was extended for an off-axis target, the overall size was reduced and structures for automated alignment with respect to the LED were included. Photometric analyses were used for each system and were found to be in good agreement with simulations.

As the use of polymer optical systems increases, several common mistakes are seen in their design. These mistakes span the range of materials, design methods, and manufacturing and are often made due to a lack of familiarity with the special design considerations of polymer optics. In this paper we provide specific examples of some common polymer optics mistakes, how they happened, and how to avoid them.

Innovative hybrid glass-polymer optical solutions on a component, module, or system level offer thermal stability of glass with low manufacturing cost of polymers reducing component weight, enhancing the safety and appeal of the products. Narrow choice of polymer materials is compensated by utilizing sophisticated optical surfaces such as refractive, reflective, and diffractive substrates with spherical, aspherical, cylindrical, and freeform prescriptions. Current advancements in polymer technology and injection molding capabilities placed polymer optics in the heart of many high tech devices and applications including Automotive Industry, Defense & Aerospace; Medical/Bio Science; Projection Displays, Sensors, Information Technology, Commercial and Industrial. This paper is about integration of polymer and glass optics for enhanced optical performance with reduced number of components, thermal stability, and low manufacturing cost. The listed advantages are not achievable when polymers or glass optics are used as stand-alone. The author demonstrates that integration of polymer and glass on component or optical system level on one hand offers high resolution and diffraction limited image quality, similar to the glass optics with stable refractive index and stable thermal performance when design is athermalized within the temperature range. On the other hand, the integrated hybrid solution significantly reduces cost, weight, and complexity, just like the polymer optics. The author will describe the design and analyzes process of combining glass and polymer optics for variety of challenging applications such as fast optics with low F/#, wide field of view lenses or systems, free form optics, etc.

Various nanostructures with a feature sizes down to 50 nm as well as photonic structures such as waveguides or grating couplers were successfully replicated into the thermoplastic polymer polymethylpentene employing an injection molding process. Polymethylpentene has highly attractive characteristics for photonic and life-science applications such as a high thermal stability, an outstanding chemical resistivity and excellent optical transparency. In our injection molding process, the structures were directly replicated from 2" silicon wafers that serve as an exchangeable mold insert in the injection mold. We present this injection molding process as a versatile technology platform for the realization of optical integrated devices and diffractive optical components. In particular, we show the application of the injection molding process for the realization of waveguide and grating coupler structures, subwavelength gratings and focusing nanoholes.

A tunable diffraction grating is fabricated by embedding a nitinol wire within an elastomeric grating replica. Curvature of the grating is varied through heating the wire with an electric current. Actuation redirects the grating normal, resulting in a scanning motion of the diffracted beam. With 2.0 A of applied current, the 1^st-order beam sweeps from diffraction angle φ = 45.4° to φ = 29.6° (Δφ = 15.8°) in approximately 40 seconds. Use of the deformable grating as a selective color display element is discussed.

Deformable mirror is a crucial component of adaptive optics. It can be used to vary the optical power of an optical image system, such as auto-focus and optical zoom function. An electrostatic type MEMS deformable mirror used in an optical image system has been promoted recently. However, high voltage in the range of hundreds volts is a serious concern for electrostatic type MEMS deformable mirror. Ionic-polymer metal composite (IPMC) is a polymer actuator with the advantage of large deformation under low actuation voltage. It is a sandwich structure composed of two metal electrodes and a layer of polymer film. The hydrated cation inside the polymer film moves toward the cathode. Because of the migration of ions and water inside the film, volume expansion and contraction induce the deformation of IPMC. In this paper, we design the IPMC type deformable mirror that is simulated by finite element method and then demonstrate its focus-varying function. It requires less than one volt to achieve over 100 diopters.

The raw materials for optical glasses and optical plastics are very different. The plastic feedstocks are volatile liquids, petrochemicals, which are highly refined by industrial distillation. The feedstocks for inorganic glasses are minerals, purified by solid processing methods. The optical plastic resin is always virgin stock; "regrind" is never used for high-quality optical plastics. In contrast, the inorganic optical glass feedstock is improved by adding "cullet", which is the recovered waste from breakage and trim during glass part production. This paper discusses the sources and refinement of feedstocks for both glass and plastic, including consideration of cost, recycle and ramifications for optical part production, and anticipated future trends. A snapshot summary of current marketplace conditions is given.