Australian researchers develop an easy way to make a lens

A lens is usually created after going through the process of grinding and polishing a disk of glass until it is curved or with molds. This method has been practiced for hundreds of years, and is a complex and expensive method.

Researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) developed a cheap and simple method to create a lens. While the new process developed by the researchers allows scientists to heat the lens of their own gravity powered only with an oven, a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) glass slide or commonly called a polymer gel.

ANU researcher Steve Lee holds up a set of droplet lenses on a microscope coverslip. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1qxrmJQ)

The trick is just by dropping a little of the PDMS material in slides then heating it until hardened with a temperature of 70 degrees centigrade. The heat was not even as hot as an oven used for baking. This process is used to create a basic lens.

After the PDMS material dripped back to basics with the slide inverted position, gravity by itself will make it curved. Heating process will strengthen the shape of the lens. This process can be repeated to enhance the quality of the lens shape.

"I am very excited about this method opens the lens fabrication technology.'s Low cost and easy way to make a lens," said Steve Lee, who was the leader of this research, as reported by Mashable on Monday, June 9, 2014.

This lens can later be used for medical devices. Demoscopis is one of them. The price of the device used to magnify and illuminate the cross-section of human skin when diagnosing diseases like melanamo usually reach U.S. $500. With the process of making this new lens would be expected to help researchers because of its low cost, which is only about U.S. $2.

The process itself produces a small lens with a magnification of 160 times and a resolution of about 4 microns. This specification is just as good with many outstanding commercial microscope. It's just cheapening the cost of this, the development of the manufacture of these lenses can be made more massive .. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | MASHABLE]

Note: This blog can be accessed via your smart phone.

Kindly Bookmark and Share it: