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

这个小型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，效率低下和需求。玻璃光学器件目前用于广泛的应用中，例如医疗设备（内窥镜、诊断、成像等），防御（弹道窗口，导弹圆顶等），消费电子产品（手机镜头、智能设备屏幕等）和更多.与该市场相关的挑战是在开发阶段不断需要原型光学玻璃透镜。如今，这些玻璃镜片是使用研磨和抛光工艺相结合的原型，这些工艺成本高且耗时。拟议中的（QET）四元技术可能会颠覆玻璃光学行业，主要是原型市场，估计约为3亿美元，每年快速增长50%。最终的结果将是更快地获得利用玻璃光学的尖端技术。一个例子将是显著改进关节镜或内窥镜手术工具，其极大地减少了手术过程中的患者创伤和恢复时间，或者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。 该项目的智力价值是实现一种创新的高生产率方法来制造光学质量玻璃。本提案的目的是证明概念验证，并确定在单个加工过程中组合四（4）个不同元素的可行性：机械，化学，光子和热。所提出的技术，称为QET（四元素技术），是第一个在加工过程中利用四个元素的优势，专门用于材料去除。到目前为止，这四个元素已连续使用的现状加工工艺，但从来没有同时。仅提取和优化这四个元素的优点的能力将使更快（6- 8倍）和更便宜（3- 5倍）的精密制造工艺能够生产玻璃光学器件。第一阶段研发的主要目标是成功地为提出的四个元素中的每一个选择和优化单个组件，并展示光学玻璃的精密车削工艺。该奖项反映了NSF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.