An automated Guilloche machining technique for the fabrication of polygonal Fresnel lens array

Fresnel lenses are gaining wider applications in optoelectronics and photonic devices. They have been evolved into arrays of individual elements with better performance and better capabilities. These arrays may also be realized with individual elements having polygonal shapes such as rectangular, hexagonal, etc to achieve a high fill factor. Due to the fact that the polygonal Fresnel lens arrays are not rotationally symmetrical, they are manufactured by using expensive lithography techniques or time consuming method of having multiple molds assembled together. This paper presents an automated 4-axis ultraprecision machining technique for manufacturing an array of hexagonal Fresnel lenses. In the proposed method, a diamond tool moves as a fixed point on a circle rolling inside a fixed circle which is analogous to a Guilloche machine. The proposed automated machining technique has been experimentally verified through successful manufacturing hexagonal Fresnel lens array in a single process, without having separated sections assembled as a single master mold. From the results, an excellent surface finish and good profile accuracy are also achieved. The developed automated Guilloche machining technique also paves the way for the promising challenges to remove manufacturing barriers of machining freeform surfaces with complex curvatures. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.