?Yighen: Pioneering Plastic Aspheric Optical Manufacturing

In today’s rapidly growing optical industry, plastic aspheric components have gained widespread adoption across a variety of fields due to their distinct advantages—lightweight design, low cost, and ease of molding. From smartphone lenses and VR/AR devices in consumer electronics, to automotive lighting and vision systems, and even endoscopes in medical equipment, these components are now ubiquitous.

However, for many years, the processing of plastic aspheric parts has faced persistent challenges such as high prototyping costs and significant shrinkage errors after mass injection molding. These issues have long constrained innovation and development across related industries. Today, Yighen Ultra Precision is changing this landscape with its leading-edge technology and innovative solutions, achieving major breakthroughs in cost-effective prototyping and mass production of plastic aspheric components.

Breaking Tradition: Cost-Effective Prototyping Paves the Way for Innovation

In the early stages of product development, fast and affordable prototyping is crucial for companies to validate feasibility and seize market opportunities. Traditional methods for prototyping plastic aspheres often rely on mold-making, which can cost tens of thousands of yuan or more and take several weeks to complete. For fast-moving innovative enterprises, this represents a heavy burden.

Yighen Ultra Precision introduces a groundbreaking approach through direct machining of resin blocks. Leveraging advanced ultra-precision single-point diamond turning machines under precise CNC control, the company acts like a master craftsman—carving high-performance resin blocks into finely detailed prototypes. The benefits are immediate: prototyping costs are significantly reduced, often down to just a few thousand yuan; and the turnaround time is dramatically shortened from weeks to just a few days.

> Image caption: Yighen Ultra Precision is capable of producing various optical lenses, including aspheric, freeform, and Fresnel lenses, at low cost.

More importantly, Yighen Ultra Precision maintains a rich and diverse material database. Common optical resins such as polycarbonate (PC), known for its high strength and excellent impact resistance, are ideal for applications requiring robust mechanical performance. Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) offers high transmittance and weather resistance, making it well-suited for applications where optical clarity and appearance are critical.

Zeonex series materials (T62R, K26R, 480R, etc.) offer low birefringence, low moisture absorption, and high glass transition temperatures, making them perfect for precision optical systems that demand exceptional stability. Other high-performance materials such as APL5013, APL5014, EP5000, EP9000, OKP-1, and OKP-4 each bring unique optical and physical properties tailored to a wide range of application needs.

> Image caption: Custom-produced resin blocks used by Yighen Ultra Precision for rapid prototyping and manufacturing.

Precision Craftsmanship: Advanced Mass Production Ensures Quality

Once a product enters mass production, ensuring high-quality output while maintaining efficiency and consistency becomes another key challenge. Yighen Ultra Precision addresses this with a suite of advanced technologies and processes that support reliable large-scale manufacturing.

Its single-point diamond turning technology sets an industry benchmark. By precisely controlling CNC parameters and using high-quality diamond tools, the company directly machines plastic materials into high-precision aspheric components. This method excels in producing medium-to-small-sized optical parts in mid-volume batches, offering high productivity, accuracy, and repeatability. Optical components up to 120mm in size can achieve surface form accuracy of 1/21λ and surface roughness RMS values between 0.02–0.06μm—laying a solid foundation for high-quality mass production.

Furthermore, mold quality plays a decisive role in the accuracy and consistency of mass-produced aspheric components. Yighen Ultra Precision leads the industry with its pioneering use of ultrasonic-assisted ultra-precision single-point diamond turning to directly machine hardened steel molds. This technique achieves nanometer-level precision—a world-class standard.

Compared to traditional nickel-plated mold cores, this method eliminates the need for plating, avoiding common issues like coating peeling. It also delivers superior surface finish and dimensional accuracy, with surface roughness Ra<7nm and form accuracy <0.2μm. This significantly enhances the performance and reliability of optical mold cores. Moreover, their injection molding lifespan is three times longer than that of nickel-plated molds—reaching hundreds of thousands of cycles—greatly reducing production costs and improving efficiency. The process also shortens the mold-making cycle by four weeks, providing strong support for large-scale manufacturing.

During the injection molding of plastic materials, factors such as material properties, temperature changes, and pressure variations can lead to part deformation and dimensional deviations. To address this, Yighen Ultra Precision developed its own error compensation algorithm. By accurately measuring and analyzing the surface accuracy of molded lenses, the system calculates the error distribution equation, combines it with the original design, and generates a new surface profile. The updated NC program then dynamically adjusts the machining process. In mass production, this algorithm enables real-time monitoring and correction of machining errors, greatly improving product precision and consistency—ensuring every produced plastic aspheric component meets stringent quality standards.

> Image caption: Various optical lenses manufactured by Yighen Ultra Precision, including aspheric, freeform, and Fresnel lenses.

> Image caption: Binary diffractive optical elements produced by Yighen Ultra Precsion

Broad Applications: Driving Industrial Upgrades Across Sectors

The cost-effective prototyping and mass production technologies developed by Yighen Ultra Precision have found extensive applications across multiple industries, fueling upgrades and innovations.

In the consumer electronics sector, demands for optical performance and compact design in smartphone lenses continue to rise. Yighen Ultra Precision supports lens manufacturers with low-cost, high-precision aspheric lens prototyping services, helping accelerate product innovation. During mass production, the company ensures stable processes and consistent quality to meet the high-volume needs of smartphone manufacturing, enhancing image quality and user experience.

For VR/AR devices, high-precision plastic aspheric lenses are essential for delivering sharp, immersive visuals. Yighen Ultra Precisiobn helps reduce R&D costs and speed up product iterations, advancing the popularity of virtual and augmented reality technologies.

In automotive lighting systems, aspheric lenses enable more precise beam shaping, improving both lighting efficiency and safety. Yighen’s cost-effective prototyping allows auto parts suppliers to quickly test new lighting designs. During mass production, the company guarantees consistent product quality and lower overall costs.

In automotive vision systems, such as camera lenses, high-precision plastic aspheric lenses enhance image clarity and accuracy—providing critical support for the advancement of autonomous driving technology.

The medical device industry also benefits greatly from Yighen’s expertise. Take endoscopes as an example: their optical systems require extremely high imaging clarity and miniaturization. With Yighen’s high-precision plastic aspheric machining capabilities, medical equipment manufacturers can produce smaller, higher-resolution endoscopes—enabling more accurate diagnostic imaging and improving healthcare outcomes.

Leading the Future of Optical Manufacturing

Yighen Ultra Precision’s achievements in cost-effective prototyping and mass production of plastic aspheric components not only highlight its deep technical expertise and innovation in optical processing but also inject new vitality into multiple industries.

As technology continues to evolve and applications expand, Yighen Ultra Precision is poised to remain at the forefront of optical manufacturing innovation. Its contributions will help drive global industrial progress. Whether emerging tech startups or established manufacturing giants, companies can leverage Yighen’s solutions to upgrade their products, gain a competitive edge, and jointly shape a brighter future for the optical industry.