In the morning of Jan. 8, State Scientific and Technological Award ceremony was held in Beijing by the CPC (Communist Party of China) Central Committee and State Council. The “Gradient Refractive Index Optical Materials and Microlens Series” project from our institute was awarded the second prize. This project was undertaken by the scientific staffs from our institute including LI Yu-lin, HUO Jun-min, YAO Sheng-li, GAO Feng, LU Min, WANG Li-li, HU Bao-wen, YAN Guo-an, JIAO Guo-hua, LI Bai-tao, et al.

Gradient Refractive Index (GRIN) optics is a new branch and cutting-edge research subject of modern optics, and the size of GRIN optical component is from microns to millimeters. The kind of component consists of microlenses or lens arrays, which are produced by non-uniform dielectric materials with different refractive indexes, and its refractive index is radial, axial and spherical direction non-linear curve. Based on the special optical properties of GRIN optical materials, the optical materials and products can be used into micro-optical imaging devices, such as facsimile machines, copiers, scanners, medical or industrial endoscopes, and other micro image sensors. As an optical active and passive device, GRIN optical components have extensive application in the optical collimator, interconnection, isolators, optical filters, optical switches, and optical couplers, etc.

Since the early seventies of last century, XIOPM has carried out deep studies and developments of GRIN materials. After tens of years of hard working, this project made significant progress, five kinds of formulations for GRIN optical materials and the microlenses are designed. In the early of this century, serialization of radial GRIN lens (self-focusing lens) successfully passed the pre-production test. To promote the industrialization of this project, in 2001, XIOPM established the Femto Technology (Xi'an) Co., Ltd. which has became to be the biggest supplier of GRIN lens.

In addition, XIOPM firstly launched a research on optical polymer microlenses and its array in our country. Optical polymer materials have many merits, which are attractive to waveguided equipments, integrated and photo-biologic sensors, so it will be a research field with vast applications. At present, XIOPM has successfully designed a polymer microlens printing equipment with the micro-nozzle.

During the research on the project of GRIN optical materials and microlenses, XIOPM obtained five patents for invention and four patents for utility model which are on complete own intellectual properties. The techniques achieved international advanced level that got both economic and social benefits in the progress of industrialization of the project.