title: Aerodynamic levitator for large-sized glassy material production.
abstract: Containerless aerodynamic levitation processing is a unique technology for the fabrication of bulk non-crystalline materials. Using conventional aerodynamic levitation, a high reflective index (RI) material (BaTi2O5 and LaO3/2-TiO2-ZrO2 system) was developed with a RI greater than approximately 2.2, which is similar to that of diamond. However, the glass size was small, approximately 3 mm in diameter. Therefore, it is essential to produce large sized materials for future optical materials applications, such as camera lenses. In this study, a new aerodynamic levitator was designed to produce non-crystalline materials with diameters larger than 6 mm. The concept of this new levitator was to set up a reduced pressure at the top of the molten samples without generating turbulent flow. A numerical simulation was also performed to verify the concept.
authors.affiliation: Kumamoto University, 2-39-1 Kurokami Chuo-ku, Kumamoto 860-8555, Japan.
authors.forename: Shinichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yoda
authors.affiliation: Inha University, 253 Yonghyun-dong, Nam-gu, Incheon 402-751, South Korea.
authors.forename: Won-Seung
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Muroran Institute of Technology, Hokkaido 050-8585, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryoji
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Imai