A lens forming method is provided, including: heating a blank mold with a pre-molding cavity until a glass preform in the pre-molding cavity is in a semi-molten state; applying a pressure to the blank mold, so that the glass preform is extruded to form a lens rough blank with a predetermined shape; cooling the blank mold and the lens rough blank, and separating the blank mold by depressurization, to transfer the lens rough blank to a molding cavity of a high-precision aspherical mold; heating the high-precision aspherical mold until the lens rough blank is softened to a semi-molten state; applying a pressure to the high-precision aspherical mold, so that the lens rough blank is extruded to form a lens molded part with an aspherical structure; and cooling the high-precision aspherical mold and the lens molded part, and separating the high-precision aspherical mold by depressurization, to remove the lens molded part.

A product conveyance apparatus includes an actuator, a movement portion, a first position detection portion, a second position detection portion, and a controller. The controller performs a process of causing the actuator not holding a product to move to a predetermined position, detecting the position of the actuator and storing the position as a first position, a process of causing the actuator to move on a basis of a movement instruction value and hold the product, causing the actuator holding the product to move to the predetermined position, detecting the position of the product held by the actuator, and storing the position as a second position, and a process of correcting and updating the movement instruction value on a basis of difference between the first position and the second position.

A method for continuous production of photo-sensitive glass bodies, glass bodies, and structured glass articles are provided. The glass bodies include a glass having Si.sup.4+, at least one crystal-agonist, at least one crystal-antagonist, and at least one pair of nucleating agents. The glass may be used in a method for structuring of glass. The glass bodies may be structured and/or unstructured and used in different applications such as in components or as components in micro-technology, in micro-reaction-technology, in electronic packaging, for micro-fluidic components, in or as FED spacer, for bio-technology (for example titer plates), as interposer, and in or as three-dimensional structurable antennae.

An optical element manufacturing device includes a mold set including: a first shaping mold and a second shaping mold facing each other with a shaping-target material between the first and second shaping molds, and a sleeve located around the first and second shaping molds; and a plurality of stages on which the mold set is conveyed and which heat, press or cool the shaping-target material. The sleeve is conveyed to the stages in such a manner that a conveyance-direction front side of the mold set in an arrangement direction of the plurality of stages has a heat insulation portion with a heat insulation property that is higher than that on a conveyance-direction rear side of the mold set in order to reduce a temperature distribution in the shaping-target material.

A method for manufacturing an optical element includes heating an optical material up to a first temperature that is higher than a transition point, pressurizing the optical material using a first mold and a second mold that are situated opposite to each other across the optical material, first cooling the optical material down to a second temperature that is higher than a strain point and lower than the first temperature while pressurizing the optical material with a predetermined load using the first mold and the second mold, releasing the predetermined load at a set speed that is higher than or equal to a speed obtained in advance, at which an elastic deformation occurs preferentially over a viscous deformation in the optical material upon releasing a load, and second cooling the optical material down to a third temperature that is lower than the second temperature.

A method of controlling an optical element manufacturing apparatus includes: heating a cavity formed of a pair of upper and lower dies to a first temperature where an optical element material softens and becomes formable by the pair of dies; heating the cavity to a second temperature where the optical element material is deformed due to a weight of the optical element material in a state of not being in contact with the upper die, the second temperature being higher than the first temperature; and pressing the pair of dies for transfer of forming surfaces of the pair of dies onto the optical element material, the forming surfaces being outside a range where a forming surface of a die has been transferred by the deformation due to the weight in the state where the optical element material is not in contact with the upper die at the second temperature.

A shape forming system according to one embodiment includes a mold assemblies; a heating unit; a pressing unit; a cooling unit; an isolation chamber configured to accommodate therein the heating unit, the pressing unit, and the cooling unit arranged in parallel with each other; and a conveyance unit configured to move the plurality of mold assemblies each of which is arranged on a plate provided in each of the heating unit, the pressing unit, and the cooling unit to thereby convey the mold assemblies in sequence.

A method for further processing of a glass tube semi-finished product includes: providing the glass tube semi-finished product, along with tube-specific data for the glass tube semi-finished product; reading the tube-specific data for the glass tube semi-finished product; and further processing of the glass tube semi-finished product including a step of thermal forming carried out at least in sections. At least one process parameter during the further processing of the glass tube semi-finished product including the step of thermal forming carried out at least in sections is controlled as a function of the tube-specific data for the glass tube semi-finished product. In this way, the further processing can be matched more efficiently to the particular characteristics of a glass tube semi-finished product to be processed or a particular subsection thereof, and the relevant characteristics of the particular glass tube semi-finished product do not need to be measured again.

A shape forming system according to one embodiment includes a mold assemblies; a heating unit; a pressing unit; a cooling unit; an isolation chamber configured to accommodate therein the heating unit, the pressing unit, and the cooling unit arranged in parallel with each other; and a conveyance unit configured to move the plurality of mold assemblies each of which is arranged on a plate provided in each of the heating unit, the pressing unit, and the cooling unit to thereby convey the mold assemblies in sequence.

Systems and methods for texturing substrates (e.g., glass, metal, and the like) and the textured substrates produced using such systems and methods are disclosed. An exemplary system for texturing a substrate includes a first roller and a second roller. The first roller has a first textured surface. The first textured surface has a root mean square roughness between 40 to 1000 microns and an autocorrelation function greater than 0.5 for distances less than 50 microns.