ABSTRACT

Although the manufacture of lenses by grinding is a centuries-old craft, molding technology has been developed for precision applications only in the last few decades. The economic driving forces behind this development were mainly the optical data storage and the handheld camera/camcorder applications, both creating a huge demand for low-cost, high-quality optical components. Backlighting lightguides for liquid crystal displays (LCD) has become an important field of application for molded plastic optics as well.