Saint-Gobain Unveils Wafer-Level Planar Optics

I-Micronews: French company Saint-Gobain has developed a new technology to manufacture arrays of gradient index planar lenses in glass at the wafer scale. The optical function of a gradient index lens is provided by the gradual distribution of the refractive index inside the glass. The resulting optical element is perfectly flat. This might be convenient for integrating several optical elements in the lens of wafer-scale cameras.

At the current development stage, 1000 optical elements can be fabricated at 8" wafer. The goal is to reach 5000 gradient index lenses per 8" glass wafer in the near future.