Fabricating small features in glass or polymer optics has applications ranging from improving the efficiency of industrial lasers, to guiding light in lidar systems used in autonomous vehicles. Lissotschenko Mikrooptik has been developing complex beam shaping optics for lasers in consumer electronics manufacturing lines, while researchers at Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) and TU Dresden (Germany), are discovering new ways to produce smoother polymer lenses in mass-production environments.