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Jun 27, 2019

Microscopic glass blowing used to make tiny optical lenses

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Inserting air into hot glass to form a bubble has been used to make glass objects since Roman times. In new work, researchers apply these same glass blowing principles on a microscopic scale to make specialized miniature cone-shaped lenses known as axicons.

Axicons are used to shape in a way that is beneficial for optical drilling, imaging and creating for manipulating particles or cells. These lenses have been known for more than 60 years, but their fabrication, especially when small, is not easy.

“Our technique has the potential of producing robust miniature axicons in glass at a low cost, which could be used in miniaturized imaging systems for biomedical imaging applications, such as , or OCT,” said research team member Nicolas Passilly from FEMTO-ST Institute in France.

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