Silicone microlenses and interference gratings

Interference gratings, plano-convex microlenses, and spherical microlenses have been made in silicone. Lenses were fabricated by the melting method. Two substrates have been tried: glass and Teflon. The latter substrate lets us fabricate low-f-number lenses. We made spherical microlenses by placing pieces of silicone near a thermal source and studied resolution of the lenses by investigating the images they gave of a test chart. We made low-spatial-frequency gratings by recording interference patterns and studied parameters involved in the recording. A study of the profile of the gratings and lenses was done with a mechanical surface analyzer.