Technological Breakthroughs and Innovation Trends  

The optical lens industry is undergoing an unprecedented wave of technological innovation to meet the challenges posed by emerging applications such as AR/VR. These innovations not only drive leapfrog improvements in product performance but also fundamentally transform optical design philosophies and manufacturing paradigms.  

Material Innovations and Structural Breakthroughs

• Revolutionary Application of Glass Aspherical Lenses: Traditional spherical lenses require multiple concave-convex lens combinations to correct inherent aberrations, leading to bulky lens modules. Glass aspherical lenses freely design light paths by adjusting conic constants and aspherical coefficients, effectively correcting spherical aberrations. One glass aspherical lens can achieve the effect of 2–3 glass spherical lenses, significantly reducing the number of lenses and lowering volume and weight. With the increasing demand for high definition and wide field-of-view in smart driving and AR/VR, the usage of glass aspherical lenses is growing at an annual rate of 15%. For example, Sunny Optical’s VR-specific aspherical lens reduces the number of lenses from 6 to 4, decreases module thickness by 30%, and reduces weight by 40%, greatly enhancing the comfort of head-mounted devices.  

• Mature Application of Glass-Plastic Hybrid Technology: The industry innovatively combines the high stability of glass with the moldability of plastic to create balanced hybrid lens solutions. In smartphone lenses, 7P (7 plastic lenses) designs have become standard for flagship models, while high-end AR devices adopt "GMO" (glass molded aspherical + plastic aspherical) hybrid structures. For instance, Ofilm’s f/1.8 large-aperture lens for panoramic cameras uses three glass lenses to provide basic optical performance and two plastic aspherical lenses for complex surface correction, increasing light intake by 40% while controlling costs, significantly improving imaging in low-light conditions.  

• Disruptive Innovation in Planar Optical Lenses: Chinese research teams have made breakthrough progress in planar optics technology. The Yuelu Mountain Industrial Innovation Center developed a subwavelength structured planar lens that integrates hundreds of millions of micro-nano structures on a 1-mm-thick substrate, precisely controlling the size and shape of each structure to achieve light deflection. This design reduces lens module thickness by over 50% and weight by 60%, solving the problem of protruding smartphone lenses and revolutionizing the lightweighting of AR/VR devices. The team’s unique lithography process enables batch production of 10-cm-diameter planar lenses, with industry leaders like Sunny Optical and Yutong Optical collaborating on industrialization. In drones, this technology reduces lens weight from 200g to 80g, extending battery life by 25%; in satellite remote sensing, reduced payload weight allows each satellite to carry three additional detection devices.  

Intelligent Optical Design Upgrades

• Frontier Exploration of Computational Optics: Traditional optical design relies on empirical formulas and iterative optimization, while AI algorithms are transforming this paradigm. By training lens design models with deep learning networks, optimal optical structures that meet specific constraints can be automatically generated. Sunny Optical’s AI design platform reduces the design cycle for complex lenses from 6 months to 1 month, improving design efficiency by 80%. The system automatically balances over 20 parameters, including field of view, resolution, and distortion control, to achieve global optimization.  

• Breakthrough in Multi-Physical Field Collaborative Simulation: Modern optical design requires comprehensive consideration of opto-mechanical-thermal multi-field coupling effects. Leading companies have developed multi-physical field simulation platforms to simulate performance fluctuations under temperature changes, mechanical vibrations, and humidity impacts. Goertek’s VR lens design process includes over 10 environmental reliability tests, using simulations to identify and resolve defocus issues caused by thermal expansion in advance, reducing product development failure rates by 60%.  

• Application Expansion of Free-Form Surface Design: Compared to rotationally symmetric traditional lenses, free-form surfaces achieve better aberration control through asymmetric design. In AR glasses, free-form surface waveguide technology projects images precisely onto the retinal area of the human eye, achieving a field of view of over 50° while maintaining a lens thickness of only 1.5 mm. OmniVision’s free-form surface array lens uses 8 asymmetric optical zones to achieve a 120° ultra-wide field of view, with edge distortion controlled within 3%, addressing the "screen-door effect" pain point in VR devices.  

Precision Manufacturing Revolution

• Cross-Industry Application of Semiconductor Lithography Technology: The manufacturing of micro-nano structures for planar optical lenses relies on advanced lithography processes. The Yuelu Mountain Industrial Innovation Center team adopted nanoimprint lithography to achieve feature sizes as small as 200 nm on glass substrates, with surface roughness controlled below 1 nm RMS. This process, combined with plasma etching and atomic layer deposition, enables mass production of large-diameter planar lenses.  

• Breakthrough in Ultra-Precision Molding Technology: Mass production of glass aspherical lenses depends on precision molding technology. Industry leaders have improved processing accuracy to the sub-micron level, with surface shape accuracy reaching 0.1 μm RMS and surface roughness Ra < 1 nm. Hoya’s GMP (Glass Molding Press) technology uses silicon carbide molds to mold optical glass at 600°C, achieving daily production capacity of tens of thousands of pieces and reducing the cost of high-end aspherical lenses by 60%.  

• Widespread Application of Active Alignment Technology: AR/VR lens assembly requires micron-level precision, which traditional passive alignment cannot meet. Active Alignment technology detects imaging quality in real time during assembly and achieves optimal optical centering through 6-axis automatic adjustment. Sunny Optical’s active alignment production line controls lens assembly accuracy within ±1 μm, increasing product yield to over 95%.