Despite a 300-year optical industry standard, two Israeli researchers have uncovered an innovative and comparably cheap, way to make optical lenses. While the traditional method typically requires a large slab of material, which is then ground down and shaped, resulting in about 80% waste, a new method allows for zero waste.
Enter Prof. Moran Bercovici and Dr. Valeri Frumkin, both Technion mechanical engineers specializing in fluid technologies, who decided to challenge themselves with the task of recreating the optical lens. They were inspired after Bercovici, who shared about his work, had a conversation with fellow Israeli David Zilberman, who asked if they could make glasses from it, noting the basic need of 2.5 million people in developing countries who do not have a clear vision – and do not have access to them.
The two scientists uncovered that while glasses are cheap to make, cheap glasses aren’t manufactured or sold, leaving a gap in what is accessible to those in need. Transferring their knowledge in fluid materials, they experimented to create an optical lens. Their end result is a simplified process, using basic ingredients of water, salt, a polymer substance, and a ring-shaped frame. Instead of starting with a large block and wasting materials, they inject their simple mixture into a frame for a completely waste-free process.
Bercovici says that “any kid could make them at home, and I made some at home with my daughters. We have made a lot of things in the lab over the years, some of them very complex, but this without a doubt was the simplest and most unsophisticated thing we ever did. And perhaps the most important.”
The researchers’ new method has already opened other opportunities, specifically with NASA. While space telescopes are often lengthy, complicated, and expensive to make, the new method may serve to ease the process. Bercovici shared his post-discovery dreams; first to help people and serve those in need of eyeglasses.
He also acknowledged that working on the next space telescope is exciting for the Technion team as well as NASA, whose representative stated “the fluidic shaping approach could potentially lead to powerful space-constructed telescopes with apertures measuring in tens or even hundreds of meters. Such telescopes may, for instance, enable direct observations of planets around other stars, facilitating high-resolution analysis of their atmospheres and perhaps even recognition of large-scale surface features. The approach could lead to other space applications as well, such as in-space manufacturing of high-quality optical components for energy collection and transmission, scientific instruments, and medical devices — thus playing an important role in the emerging space economy.”
