Potentials and challenges in the additive manufacturing of nanoparticle-infused silicone optics

The research in additive manufacturing methods using highly transparent silicone is evolving from conceptual to stable processes. Utilizing such a silicone material allows for a time and cost efficient manufacturing of passive freeform optical elements. Especially when it comes to handling the liquid base materials of silicone, possibilities arise to include additives like nanoparticles in the manufacturing process. The particles can be mixed with the silicone base material beforehand or on-the-fly during the manufacturing process. Depending on the particle’s type, the local transmittance, reflectance or even emittance of the optical element becomes variable. The infusion of force-addressable nanoparticles further enables an exploitation of the elastic deformability of the silicone, resulting in optical elements with implemented actor or sensor functions. Thus, nanoparticle-infused silicone optics constitute a multidimensional solution space that needs to be explored. The potentials of such functionalized silicone optics as well as consequent challenges will be discussed in this paper.