Abstract
Rapidly developing IT technologies in recent years have raised the demands for high-precision optical lenses used for sensors, digital cameras, cell phones and optical storage media. Many techniques are required to manufacturing high-precision optical lenses, including multi-beam sensing lenses investigated in the current study. In the case of injection molding for thick lenses, a shrinkage phenomenon often occurs during the process. This shrinkage is known to be the main reason for the lower optical quality of the lenses. In the present work, a CAE analysis was conducted simultaneously with experiments to understand and minimize this phenomenon. In particular, the sectional area of a gate was varied in order to understand the effects of packing and cooling processes on the final shrinkage pattern. As a result of this study, it was demonstrated that a dramatic reduction of the shrinkage could be obtained by increasing the width of the gate.
