SBIR Phase I: Quad Element Technology for Precision Machining Glass Optics

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目解决了与快速增长的精密玻璃光学市场相关的挑战、低效率和需求。玻璃光学目前广泛应用于医疗设备（范围，诊断，成像等），国防（弹道窗，导弹圆顶等），消费电子产品（手机镜头，智能设备屏幕等）等。与这个市场相关的挑战是在开发阶段不断需要光学玻璃透镜的原型。今天，这些玻璃镜片的原型是使用研磨和抛光工艺的组合，这是昂贵和耗时的。拟议的（QET）四元技术可能会扰乱玻璃光学行业，主要是原型市场，估计约为3亿美元，每年快速增长50%。最终的结果将是利用玻璃光学的尖端技术更快地可用。一个例子是显著改进关节镜或内窥镜手术工具，从而大大减少手术过程中患者的创伤和恢复时间，甚至使患者能够进行远程手术，特别是在第三世界国家。其他社会效益将通过经济增长、提供竞争优势、提高产品质量和盈利能力直接实现。这个项目的智力价值是使一个创新的高生产率的方法来制造光学质量的玻璃。本提案的目的是证明概念的证明，并确定在单一加工过程中结合四(4)种不同元素的可行性：机械，化学，光子和热。提出的技术，称为QET（四元技术），是其在加工过程中首次利用的优势，四个元素专门为材料去除。到目前为止，这四个要素在现有的加工过程中是连续使用的，而不是同时使用的。仅提取和优化这四种元素的优势的能力将使生产玻璃光学元件的精度制造过程更快（6-8倍）和更便宜（3-5倍）。第一阶段研发的主要目标是成功地为所提出的四个元素中的每一个元素选择和优化单个组件，并演示光学玻璃的精密车削工艺。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project addresses the challenges, inefficiencies and need associated with a rapidly growing precision glass optics market. Glass optics are currently used in a wide range of applications such as medical devices (scopes, diagnostics, imaging, etc.), defense (ballistic windows, missile domes, etc.), consumer electronics (cell phone lenses, smart device screens, etc.) and more. The challenge associated with this market is the constant need to prototype optical glass lenses during the development phase. Today, these glass lenses are prototyped using a combination of grinding and polishing processes that are costly and time consuming. The proposed (QET) Quad Element Technology could disrupt the glass optics industry, primarily the prototyping market estimated at about $300M with a rapid growth of 50% per year. The end result would be the much quicker availability of cutting edge technology that utilizes glass optics. An example would be significantly improving the arthroscopic or endoscopic surgical tools that drastically minimizes patient trauma and recovery time during a surgical procedure or even enabling remote surgery for patients especially in third world countries. Other societal benefits will be directly realized through economic growth, providing a competitive edge, and improving product quality and profitability. The intellectual merit of this project is to enable an innovative high productivity approach to manufacturing optical quality glass. The objective of this proposal is to demonstrate proof of concept and determine the feasibility of combining four (4) distinct elements in a single machining process: mechanical, chemical, photonic and thermal. The proposed technology, termed QET (Quad Element Technology), is the first of its kind in machining processes to exploit the advantages of the four elements specifically for material removal. Till date, these four elements have been used consecutively in status quo machining processes but never concurrently. The ability of extracting and optimizing only the advantages of these four elements will enable a faster (6-8x) and cheaper (3-5x) precision manufacturing process to produce glass optics. The primary goal of the Phase I R&D is to successfully select and optimize individual components for each of the four elements proposed and demonstrate a precision turning process on optical glass.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.