Hard lenses without reflections

2001/12/04 Roa Zubia, Guillermo - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Materialak
• Teknologia

Making lenses harder and harder within material research is a big challenge. Among the many lens applications, some require extra hardness and high durability. For example, those used in the entertainment world, small screens used in cars or camera lenses, endoscopes and microscopes should be very durable and emit very well the light.

The conventional lens hardening method is based on lacquer layers. Lacquer layers provide hardness to the lens, but to avoid reflections it is necessary to treat them with some oxides vapors. A two-step process.

However, with the Fraunhofer method, the lenses are prepared in one step. In the same processing process several layers are integrated, some of them of polymers and others of titanium or tantalum oxide. The best results have been obtained by polymers synthesized from cycloolefins. These substances have been marketed under the names of Zeonex and Topas.

These lens covers are produced at Leibold Optics. In this company the finished products are tested in a climatic room. The results of these tests indicate that the lenses do not deteriorate between -35 and +100ºC.