UV-curable glassy material for the manufacture of bulk and nano-structured elements

An ultra violet (UV) -cured glassy material with less than 30% organic residues was fabricated by the fast sol-gel method. The material presents high thermal stability, good optical quality and high adhesive strength. It is suitable for optical bonding and, for manufacture of optical elements and micro-structured optical devices. Either soft-lithography or photo-lithography may be used for manufacture of the material while its curing can be thermal (few hours) or UV (few seconds). In this work we present the technology to fabricate optical elements at scales spanning the sub-micron to centimeter range. This technology enables mass-production of optical elements at low cost