Indigenous development of highly ultra-precision engineered value-added optical components for healthcare & energy sector
Dr. Neha Khatri
CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation, Chandigarh
Principal Scientist
In the current digital era, the global demand for optical elements and precision lens has been growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 7.3% compared to last five years translating to a new commercial product enabled by unlocking the potentials of new precision optical products. Critical applications involving health and energy domains, requires precision optics almost ubiquitously. Miniaturization has propelled advanced manufacturing processes leading to achievable accuracies and tolerances to the sub-micron range. One of the key technologies, where accuracy in the sub-micron range or even nano-structures are concerned, is ultra-precision machining. The Single Point Diamond Turning process is capable of manufacturing high quality lenses and mirrors which has enormous potential for the requirements of the precision optical components in energy and healthcare sectors. These components play an integral role, lending quality optical components to precision optical assemblies. For high energy applications, the X-ray beam deflections require the use of highly finished curved surfaces in silicon. Focusing to a diffraction limit, accurate spot size and surface accuracy at nanometric level can be offered only by these mirrors which are achieved by some deterministic machining approach. To meet the requirements of the common human in healthcare, the medical products are needed to aid vision. Such optical elements are generally made of polymers and are either processed using diamond turning or in the form of diamond-turned-inserts used in injection molds for mass replication. The goal is to develop the novel process chain and the other methodologies that can be easily customised to meet the nation requirement for societal applications like low vision aids, thermal imaging optics, microscope focusing optics, safety goggles, biomedical implants for indigenous technology development.