Patent ID: 6986267

Claim:
A method of manufacturing an optical element with a lens barrel, in which a heat-softened optical raw material is heat compressed by a shaping die so as to be integrally joined to the inside of a lens barrel, comprising the steps of: placing the optical raw material on a placement portion projecting toward the center of the lens barrel from the inner peripheral surface thereof, performing design to satisfy a relation of L 1 <L 2 <L 3 <L 4 , herein, L 1 is a distance between the opposing ends of the projection of the placement portion, L 2 is the outside diameter of the optical raw material, L 3 is the inside diameter of the lens barrel portion which is positioned close to and above the placement portion and to which the perimeter of the optical element obtained after forming is joined, and L 4 is the inside diameter of the smallest opening on the upper end side of the lens barrel, extending a wall surface providing said inside diameter L 3 to a predetermined length in parallel with the optical axis to shape a straight wall surface, and pressing the optical raw material placed on the placement portion by a pair of shaping dies consisting of an upper die and a lower die to cause the outer edge of the raw material to be joined to the straight wall surface of the inside surface of the lens barrel, wherein L 4 <L 5 is satisfied, herein L 5 is the outside diameter of the optical element obtained after forming.