Method and apparatus for manufacturing optical element

Abstract

Provided are a method and an apparatus for manufacturing an optical element, by which high eccentricity accuracy is ensured, in the case of manufacturing the optical element having two facing optical surfaces by a droplet forming method. The method is provided with a heating step of heating a molding die to a prescribed temperature, a dropping step of dropping a molten glass droplet to a lower die, and a pressurization step of forming the optical element by relatively moving an upper die and the lower die in a pressurizing direction and applying pressure to the molten glass droplet. Based on the positional shift quantity of the two optical surfaces of the optical element formed in the pressurization step, at least the relative position or inclination of the upper die and the lower die in the horizontal direction in the pressurization step is adjusted.

Description

technical field [0001] This invention relates to the manufacturing method of the optical element which press-moldes a droplet of molten glass, and manufactures the optical element which has two optical surfaces which oppose, and the manufacturing apparatus of the optical element for carrying out this manufacturing method. Background technique [0002] In recent years, optical elements produced by press-molding glass raw materials with molding dies have been used as lenses for digital cameras, optical pickup lenses such as DVDs, camera lenses for mobile phones, coupling lenses for optical communication, and used for semiconductor lasers. The elliptical shape of the output beam is shaped into a circular beam shaping element and the like, and is widely used. [0003] In addition, with the miniaturization and high-precision requirements of optical products, the performance required for optical elements made of glass is also getting higher and higher. For the relative position of...

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Problems solved by technology

Therefore, if the gap between the sleeve and the molding die is reduced in order to reduce the amount of eccentricity, collisions are likely to occur when the sleeve is inserted into the molding die, making it difficult to manufacture optical elements with stable performance.

[0011] Furthermore, the method described in Patent Document 1 has the problem of being unable to cope with eccentricity greater than the gap between the sleeve and the molding die, and also unable to cope with parallel misalignment of the two optical surfaces.

[0012] Moreover, in the processing of the forming die, it is difficult to make the outer diameter central axis of the forming die coincide completely with the axis of the forming surface, and usually there are many cases where the outer diameter central axis and the axis of the forming surface have a certain degree of deviation.

The method described in Patent Document 2 is a method of pressurizing the upper and lower molding dies from the side to align the central axis of the outer diameter. Can't fix it

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