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Kyocera has developed a very unique method of molding glass lenses. This Precision Glass Molding technology was developed by Kyocera's Optical and Materials Engineers and uses an all-ceramic process. The result is that Kyocera is proud to offer molded glass aspheric lenses that have the smoothest surface characteristics of any molded lens available on the market today.
The molds and machinery are made of special Kyocera ceramic materials that are machined with careful precision to match the aspheric prescription of the lens.
These special ceramic molds are extremely durable and are capable of producing up to 100,000 lens elements before requiring any kind of surface re-work. This high durability means that lot-to-lot variations are minimized and will only require consideration when tools re-worked.
Another benefit of the durability and repeatability of the ceramic molding process is that Kyocera is able to automate many of the production processes, which translates into lower costs for the customer.
The thermal characteristics of the specialty ceramics used in the molds and machinery also allows Kyocera to operate in a very broad range of temperatures. This means that our process is not limited to any particular glass type. Kyocera is able to offer a variety of optical glass types, with refractive indices across the spectrum from 1.48 to 1.83, including the most commonly used glass type, BK7.
Kyocera has only a couple of standard collimator design tools that are available to the general public. The majority of the aspheric lens business requires that a unique and custom-tooled solution be created for each application. Fortunately, thanks to the automated production process, even our custom lens designs typically cost less than the off-the-shelf products of our competitors.
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