Production of Optical Plastic Components

Additive procedures are a very innovative technology for the customized production of complex components, which make them interesting for many fields of application including the field of optical technologies. The anisotropy of additively manufactured (AM) components is disadvantageous due to their layer structure. Different 3D printing procedures and transparent materials were investigated within the joint project “Großflächige Objekte mit feiner Periodizität und definierter mikroskopischer Zellform, am Beispiel ‘Ripple‐Filter’ und feinperiodischen optischen Elementen”, coordinated by 3D‐Schilling. They were systematically compared and it was shown how suitable these procedures are for optical components. The article describes the entire process chain from the idea to the finished optical component. Besides the comparison of applications, the article introduces examples of additively manufactured optical components and characterizes them in terms of their suitability for a number of optical applications.