Towards freeform manufacturing of ultra-low expansion glass optics

Abstract

Ultra-Low-Expansion glass (ULE®) has become an important technological enabler of advanced imaging for astronomy and for extreme-UV lithography. A major limitation though, is that ULE® cannot be poured from the fluid state unlike ZERODUR® which renders costly to produce large and/or complex shapes from it. Beside mirrors, optical components are rarely made of ULE® despite it sharing many properties of pure fused silica glass. Here we explore how femtosecond laser processing combined with laser induced reflow can be used to structure ULE® glass with the goal of producing miniature optical components. To fulfil optical roughness requirements, we adopt a strategy based on first producing elementary shapes, such as cubes or cylinders, that we further topologically transform into sphere, ellipsoids or curved surfaces, using a laser-reflow process. The structural modification of the glass matrix induced by the reflow were investigated using Raman spectroscopy. Our result points to a densification of the glass but no apparent sign of crystallization or devitrification. Furthermore, to understand whether the thermo-mechanical properties were affected or not, the thermal expansion coefficient was estimated using a dilatometry technic based on a pseudo-bimorph micro-cantilevers in a temperature-controlled chamber.