OptiCentric^®
Bonding & Cementing Station

The TRIOPTICS Automatic Bonding Station extends the capabilities of the OptiCentric® System into automatic manufacturing processes of optical components and systems. Modern objective lenses rely more and more on glue bonded components which, besides the lower cost, save space and weight due to the abandonment of bulky screwed retaining rings. Glue bonding is especially suited for the automatic centering and mounting of lenses since the mechanical forces to the lens are small and predictable. In addition, the costly pre-centering of the individual lenses can be avoided if the bonding is combined with an automatic centering process, making the fabrication process much cheaper.

The OptiCentric® Bonding Station includes all the devices necessary for the precise and automated centering and glue bonding of lenses into barrels and other optical subassemblies. A glue dispenser is mounted on a motorized x-y stepper motor stage for the automatic positioning of the dispenser tip to the glueing position. The dispensing process is computer controlled and the glue can be dispensed continuously or segmented around the lens.

A second x-y stepper motor stage moves a precision piezoelectric manipulator to the edge of the lens to be centered. The piezo manipulator allows a fine positioning of the sample lens with sub-micron step resolution and accuracy. The centring process is controlled by the OptiCentric® System which relies on a high resolution CCD autocollimator and the precise sample rotation with an air bearing. High-precision centering results better than 2.5 microns are typically achieved in 2
min. processing time including UV curing time. The UV curing of the glue after lens alignment is enabled by a computer controlled UV light source and several light guide outlets.

The complete bonding process is controlled by an integrated software program for all functions. A simple scripting language allows the flexible programming of the bonding process. The complete manufacturing cycle can be programmed with an easy teach-in procedure using the manual stage controls. Of course, different procedures for varying sample types can be saved in files for later use.

Lens Cementing

Lens manufacturing not only includes glue bonding of a lens to a barrel, but also the centering and cementing of two lenses to a doublet. For this purpose TRIOPTICS has developed an opto-mechanical device as a supplement to the TRIOPTICS OptiCentric® System.
It includes a 2-axis x-y piezoelectric finepositioning stage and a lens specific grabber.
The grabber does the precise positioning of the upper lens to the optimally centered position with respect to the lower lens. The centering procedure relies on the proprietary TRIOPTICS MultiLens® algorithm. It determines first the optical axis of the lower lens and calculates the target position for the top lens. The top lens is then pushed by the piezo driven grabber to the target position under control of the high resolution CCD autocollimator. With this technology, doublets with centering accuracies below 1 micron can be achieved.
Similar to the Bonding Station, the complete process is computer controlled. Driven by customer demands in the high volume market of plastic molded lenses the process has been optimized for throughput. The complete cementing cycle including UV curing and manual sample handling is performed within less than 10 seconds.

 

	Download OptiCentric® B&D Station PDF Brochure
	Automatic Bonding with OptiCentric® single alignment axis
	low resolution / high resolution
	Automatic Bonding with OptiCentric® - 120° three alignment axis
	low resolution / high resolution
	Automatic Cementing with OptiCentric®
	low resolution / high resolution

 

Automated assembly of infrared optics

Detailed view of OptiCentric® Bonding Station.
Left: Dispenser stage,
Right: Piezo manipulator stage,
Center: OptiCentric® MOT system featuring air bearing stage and electronic autocollimator

 

The OptiCentric® Bonding Station in operation