Abstract
It is highly desirable to build inexpensive midwave IR lenses quickly. An inexpensive material like silicon that has good transmission in the midwave and low material costs makes it very attractive for this purpose. Silicon’s attributes can be easily overwhelmed by its drawbacks in the production phase of a lens system. This can happen if any of the silicon surfaces need to be diamond point turned. This is not uncommon if the silicon lens needs an aspheric or kinoform surface. Silicon is very hard and makes the process of diamond point turning slow. Material is removed much slower and wears the diamond tool much faster than other IR materials like Germanium. So in some instances the cost of manufacturing silicon will negate the cost savings from the bulk material.
© 2002 Optical Society of America
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