Additive manufacturing glass optics

When it comes to advanced glass optics, additive manufacturing provides a new level of freedom to create and customise the structure or composition of optical elements. It is this promise of developing new configurations and optical components to extend the possibilities for designers that has helped to drive the development of the direct ink writing (DIW) process for 3D printing glass.

I started developing the process for DIW-printed glass along with my team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory three and a half years ago. The technique enables blending of multiple compositions together to create new gradients and patterns in glass lenses, and our ultimate goal is to apply it to improve the size, weight and power of optical systems.

Like other additive manufacturing systems, DIW is extrusion-based. The flow properties of the silica paste ‘inks’ have been specially formulated and tuned to be extrudable when they come out of the nozzle and to then hold their shape. This enables the material to be deposited filament by filament, forming a determined structure. We call these initial geometries ‘green bodies’. They contain silica, solvents and organic species, and due to their porosity, are low density.