Silicone rubber may very conveniently be used to cast a mold from a variety of surface-relief optical components and surfaces. From this it is very simple to cast replicas in epoxy resin. The method owes its success in a large part to the flexibility of the rubber mold which eases the process of separation both from the master and from the final replica. However, the flexibility also gives rise to distortions in the final replica. This paper reports preliminary work to quantify these distortions under various casting conditions.

Date Published: 24 September 1997
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 3099, Micro-optical Technologies for Measurement, Sensors, and Microsystems II and Optical Fiber Sensor Technologies and Applications, (24 September 1997); doi: 10.1117/12.281257

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3099:
Micro-optical Technologies for Measurement, Sensors, and Microsystems II and Optical Fiber Sensor Technologies and Applications
Olivier M. Parriaux; Ernst-Bernhard Kley; Brian Culshaw; Magnus Breidne, Editor(s)