In this talk I will present how interfacial phenomena in fluid mechanics can be applied to the fabrication of high-quality optical components over a wide range of scales and types.

In the first part of this talk, I will present the Fluidic Shaping method, which relies on surface energy minimization under neutral buoyancy conditions to shape liquid bodies into optical topographies. This method has enabled rapid fabrication of a wide range of freeform optical components with sub-nanometric surface quality, and was recently used to demonstrate the first fabrication of lenses on board the International Space Station. I will also discuss how the inherent scale invariance of the Fluidic Shaping method, made it the underlying technology behind the Fluidic Telescope Experiment (FLUTE) at NASA – a project aimed at exploring the use of fluids for creation of large space telescopes.

In the second part of my talk, I will introduce a method that leverages projected light patterns as a mechanism for freeform deformations of thin liquid films via the thermocapillary effect. After establishing a basic model for the film’s topography under the effect of thermocapillarity, I will introduce our approach to solving the inverse problem, which is finding the temperature field required to achieve a desired topography. I will then demonstrate how combining photo-curable films with this approach can be used to fabricate high-quality, solid diffractive optical elements, in less than five minutes.