Quartz glass is a special industrial technical glass composed of a single component of silica, with a series of special physical and chemical properties, and is praised as the “King of Glass” by experts in the field of new materials.
Optical properties of quartz glass
Quartz glass has a range of excellent optical properties. Compared with ordinary glass, high-purity quartz glass has good transmittance in a very wide spectrum from far ultraviolet (160nm) to far infrared (5μm), which is not available in general optical glass. Excellent spectral transmittance and optical uniformity make quartz glass widely used in many optical device fields.
Application of Quartz Glass in Optical Field
♦ Optical fiber communication
Optical fiber is an optical transmission tool. Optical transmission is carried out through both ends of the fiber. It is widely used in the optical fiber communication industry. Optical fiber communication has high anti-interference, high speed and large transmission capacity, and has become an important modern communication pillar. Silica optical fiber has developed early and has mature technology. It has the advantages of high precision, high strength, high reliability, low energy consumption and simple assembly. Therefore, in recent years, quartz optical fiber has become more and more important for artificial satellites, deep space exploration, inertial navigation and other fields.
♦ Optical lens
With the progress of science and technology and the improvement of industrial level in our country, the application of quartz glass has been integrated into people’s daily life. In the field of new energy, quartz glass is used in my country’s self-developed “Shenguang-III” host device, as an important material for terminal optical components such as vacuum windows, lenses, shielding sheets, polarizers, continuous phase plates, beam sampling gratings, etc. . In the field of micro-optical materials, quartz glass materials are widely used in the micro-lens industry due to their excellent transmittance in the continuous wavelength range from ultraviolet to infrared. Micro lenses are commonly used in digital cameras, computer display screens, CCD camera lenses, and medical equipment.
Based on the above performance conditions, low expansion quartz glass is the preferred material. Low-expansion quartz glass has extremely low thermal expansion coefficient and excellent cold and hot processing properties, and can be made into a closed honeycomb structure. The preparation process of low-expansion quartz glass material is relatively mature, and it is widely used in optical engineering, such as the primary mirror blank of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Research direction of quartz glass
As a special optical material, quartz glass plays an extremely important role in the fields of aerospace, semiconductor, and precision devices. Its performance directly restricts the resolution, accuracy, stability and reliability of related equipment. However, even if its anti-irradiation performance is excellent, it will still be irradiated by high-energy charged particles in space under the condition of long-term service, which will lead to a significant decline in its optical and other properties, thus affecting the service life of components. Therefore, it is necessary to study the influence of space ionizing radiation environment on quartz glass materials.