Chemical Smoothing as a Method to Manufacture High Quality 3D Printed Optical Components

• Published in: 2020 45th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz) pp. 01 - 02
• Main Authors: Lees, Rhiannon, Sanders, Heather, Cooke, Michael D., Balocco, Claudio, Gallant, Andrew J.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 08-11-2020
• Subjects: Chemicals; Metals; Optical devices; Reflectivity; Smoothing methods; Three-dimensional displays; Three-dimensional printing
• ISSN: 2162-2035
• DOI: 10.1109/IRMMW-THz46771.2020.9370555

Optical components fabricated using traditional methods are well known as being costly. A potentially cheaper alternative method is 3D printing, however the post-printing processes to reach a desirable finish can also be expensive. This is due to the requirement for several stages of polishing and the use of high-quality metals for strong reflectance percentages. We propose a chemical smoothing post-printing method to produce high quality optical components, for use in the THz region, which are able to achieve comparable performance to commercial components at a significantly reduced cost.