The institute
FEMTO's news

You are here

Micro-soufflage de verre pour la réalisation de composants optiques miniatures

A team of researchers from FEMTO-ST has developed miniature conical lenses by revisiting glass-blowing techniques practiced since Roman times.

For centuries, glass blowing is, indeed, a technique for making  glass parts in volume. A FEMTO-ST research team recently applied it on a microscopic scale to collectively produce a particular optical component, a miniature axicon, on the same substrate.

This component is in fact a conical microlens whose profile allows to generate quasi-Bessel beams, that is to say non-diffracting beams. This allows to create a miniature light saber or a light needle.

In an article published on June 25, 2019 in Optics Letters (and selected by the Optical Society of America in its News Releases), researchers presented a technique for manufacuring miniature axicons based on glass blowing. from structured micro-cavities in a silicon substrate and sealed with a glass substrate. When the stack is highly heated, the expansion of the trapped gas, combined with the drop in  glass viscosity, forms bubbles used as pistons to generate and control a profile on the opposite side of the glass substrate. Once the pistons removed by polishing, hundreds of axicons can be obtained on the same substrate. Robust, they are destined to be integrated in more complex microsystems for medical imaging or in the extension of machining performance.

“Microscopic Glass Blowing Used to Make Tiny Optical Lenses”, Optics Letters News, June 2019. https://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/newsroom/news_releases/2019/microscopic_glass_blowing_used_to_make_tiny_optica/

Article: J. V. Carrión, J. Albero, M. Baranski, C. Gorecki, N. Passilly, “Microfabrication of axicons by glass blowing at a wafer-level,” Opt. Lett., 44, 13, 3282-3285 (2019).         
DOI: https://10.1364/OL.44.003282.

More informations : Nicolas Passily

  • Stardust Odyssey : A new world record !

    Discover the smallest volume character ever animated in stop-motion (frame by frame) through a short film made thanks to FEMTO-ST's high-tech robotic equipments and researchers.

    Read more
  • Final report of the DATAZERO project

    A national project to design and manage medium power data centers powered exclusively by renewable energy sources

    Read more
  • Vladimir GAUTHIER is national winner of the PEPITE competition for young creators of innovative companies

    Entrepreneurial PhD at FEMTO-ST, Vladimir Gauthier is developing a company project on the microrobotic sorting of biological cells, which has received national price !

    Read more
  • Two young regional researchers awarded by the CNRS bronze medal

    Aude Bolopion (microrobotics) and Nadia Yousfi-Steiner (electrical engineering), two young researchers from FEMTO-ST Institute, were awarded by the CNRS bronze medal for their contribution to the advancement of French research.

    Read more
  • Secure and certify time

    Inauguration on Tuesday, July 9 of a joint laboratory between FEMTO-ST and Gorgy Timing to develop secure and certified time and frequency broadcasting systems for wireless and computer networks.

    Read more
  • Detecting problems of the anti-bleeding system of patients in 60 minutes

    Researchers from FEMTO-ST institue and the Universitiy of Geneva  have developed an innovative device that investigates a patient’s platelet capacity in near real-life conditions so that bleeding can be stopped.

    Read more
  • Focus on the european MiMédi project

    On Tuesday 11 June 2019, the teams of the FEMTO-ST Institute and the EFS Bourgogne-Franche-Comté will present, in the presence of representatives of the regional district, an important European research project on regional smart specialisation.  Bringing together 10 industrial and academic partne

    Read more
  • Closure of the S3-4AlpClusters project

    The final conference of the S3-4AlpClusters project was held in Venice on the 13th and 14th of March, in attendance of all the partners (including FEMTO-ST), observers, policy makers and members of the European Commission.

    Read more
  • The W. G. Cady Prize awarded to Serge GALLIOU at the IEEE IFCS 2019

    This award recognizes Serge Galliou's exceptional and pioneering contributions in the development of cryogenic acoustic resonators with extremely high quality factors (very low mechanical losses) for sensor, oscillator or fundamental physics applications.

    Read more
  • Two CNRS bronze medals for FEMTO-ST

    Aude Bolopion (biomedical micro-nano robotics) and Nadia Steiner (fuel cell diagnostics) are awarded with the CNRS 2019 bronze medal for their promising research.

    Each year, the CNRS bronze medals welcome some 40 young scientists whose career start is extremely promising

    Read more

Pages