A weight analysis for the replication accuracy improvement of injection-molded microlens arrays

Microlens arrays are essential components used in various optical devices. In this paper, a weight analysis aimed for the replication accuracy improvement has been proposed. The effects of processing parameters on the part weight have been investigated by numerical simulations as well as experiments. It is found that the data of part weight from experiments and simulations are of the same order of magnitude. The part weight increases with the increase of the melt temperature and the mold temperature. It increases with the increase of the injection time at first, and reaches its peak value at 0.8s, then decrease with the increase of the injection time. The part weight increases with the increase packing pressure. With increase of packing time, it is rapidly increased at first and then slightly varied, which reaches its peak value at 0.8s. The differences between the experimental and the simulation results are further discussed. It was validated that the weight analysis method can be used to evaluate the replication accuracy in a simple and practical way.