What are the common materials used for machining optical element? The materials commonly used for processing optical element mainly include ordinary optical glass, optical plastics, and optical crystals.

Optical glass

Because of its easy access to high uniformity of good transmittance, it has become one of the most widely used materials in the field of optical materials. Its grinding and cutting processing technology is mature, raw materials are easy to obtain, and the processing cost is low, easy to manufacture; It can also be doped with other substances to change its structural properties, and special glass can be prepared, which has a low melting point, and the spectral transmission range is mainly concentrated in the visible light and near infrared band.

Optical plastics

It is an important supplementary material for optical glass, and it has good transmittance in the near ultraviolet, visible and near infrared bands. It has the advantages of low cost, light weight, easy forming and strong impact resistance, but because of its large thermal expansion coefficient and poor thermal stability, its use in complex environments is limited.

Optical crystal

The transmittance band range of optical crystals is relatively wide, and they have good transmittance in visible, near infrared and even long wave infrared.

The selection of optical materials plays a key role in the design of wide-band imaging system. In the actual design process, the selection of materials is usually considered according to the following aspects.

Optical property

1, the selected material must have a high transmittance in the band;

2. For wide-band imaging systems, materials with different dispersion characteristics are usually selected to reasonably correct the chromatic aberration.

Physicochemical properties

1, the density of the material, solubility, hardness all determine the complexity of the processing process of the lens and the use of characteristics.

2, the coefficient of thermal expansion of the material is an important index, and the problem of heat dissipation should be considered in the later stage of the system design.