UV-curable glassy material for the manufacture of bulk and nano-structured elements

Abstract

An ultra violet (UV)-cured glassy material with less than 30 wt% organic residues was fabricated by the fast sol-gel method. The material presents high thermal stability, good optical quality and high adhesive strength. It is suitable for optical bonding and for manufacture of optical elements and micro-structured optical devices. Either soft-lithography or photo-lithography may be used for manufacture of the devices with either, thermal-curing (few hours) or UV-curing (few seconds). In this work we present the technology to fabricate optical elements at scales spanning the sub-micron to centimeter range. This technology enables mass-production of optical elements at low cost.