The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 24, 2026
Filed:
Apr. 27, 2022
Arizona Board of Regents on Behalf of the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (US);
Rongguang Liang, Tucson, AZ (US);
Douglas A. Loy, Tucson, AZ (US);
Zhihan Hong, Tucson, AZ (US);
Piaoran Ye, Tucson, AZ (US);
ARIZONA BOARD OF REGENTS ON BEHALF OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, Tucson, AZ (US);
Abstract
The present invention features a liquid, solvent-free, silica precursor and two-photon 3D printing process to meet the increasing needs of high-precision glass micro-optics and address the major limitations of current three-dimensional (3D) printing optics. The printed optical elements may be fully converted to transparent inorganic glass at temperatures as low as 600° C. with shrinkages as low as 17%. The present invention includes a complete process chain, from material development, printing process, and performance evaluation of the printed glass micro-optics. 3D printing of glass micro-optics with isotropic shrinkage, micrometer resolution, low deviation peak-to-valley value (<100 nm), and low surface roughness (<6 nm) has been demonstrated. The present invention enables the rapid fabrication of complex glass micro-optics previously impossible using conventional glass optics fabrication processes.