Established additive manufacturing technologies such as Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), stereo lithography (SLA) and Polyjet are commonly used in the creation of functional 3D prototypes. The disadvantage of these technologies is the formation of visible layering, which only can be removed by labor intensive technique such as polishing. We have developed an inkjet based process that is able to 3D print fully transparent products with high smoothness. No post-processing is required, which makes the technology suitable for rapid manufacturing and small series production of optics. In this paper we provide an overview of the manufacturing process in general, as well as some technical details of the inkjet printer and optical material.
Ricardo Blomaard, Joris Biskop, "3D Inkjet Printing of Optics" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP31), 2015, pp 39 - 41, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2015.31.1.art00009_1