Sustainable Manufacturing of High-Precision, Heat-Resistant Aspherical Lenses Using Ultraviolet Illumination with Prognosis of Remaining Useful Life

Recently, carbon emissions and global warming have become major issues, and efforts are being made to develop sustainable manufacturing systems and improve product lifespans. Waste and greenhouse gases created during manufacturing can be minimized using sustainable processes and by proactively considering the environment during product design and fabrication. Miniaturization of optical parts is key in the maturing mobile device market; the demand for ultra-small light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and aspherical lenses is growing rapidly. Small aspherical lenses are created using injection molding, wafer-level optics, and glass molding. Traditionally, injection molding was associated with excellent transferability, and is suitable for mass production. However, considerable energy is required to create high internal cavity pressures and high temperatures. Furthermore, a great deal of waste such as runners is created, and the lenses are unstable at high temperature. We sought to resolve these issues by using sustainable manufacturing concepts in the design stage. To this end, we used ultraviolet (UV)-curable resin to mold high-precision lenses exhibiting excellent heat-resistance. We proposed a methodology to mold ultra-small optical lenses using UV-curable resin to improve material and energy efficiency compared with the traditional injection molding process. We employed a prognostics to predict the life cycle of the system and improve sustainability.