Quantitative analysis of additively manufactured transparent polymer optics

The additive manufacturing of transparent materials enables the 3D printing of optically transparent components. In the additive manufacturing process, components are built layer by layer. This enables the cost-effective and fast production of prototypes and free-form optics. However, the layer-by-layer manufacturing process leads to a combination of surface structures and material defects, which reduce the optical quality of the components. In addition, the additive manufacturing process leads to optically anisotropic properties. We present the quantitative analysis of the anisotropic optical properties of transparent polymer samples which are manufactured by using the MultiJet Modeling (MJM) process. These are measured with a goniometric measurement setup and quantitatively analyzed with regarding to their transmittance and scattering behavior. For detailed analysis, the impact of the surface structure and the light scattering behavior which is generated in the samples volume are analyzed separately. Moreover, the impact of a layer thickness variation is determined regarding the scattering and light shaping characteristics of the MJM manufactured components.