Large quantities of dust have been discovered in a number of high-redshift (z>6)
galaxies and quasars. As significant dust formation in AGB stars occurs on timescales
longer than the age of these galaxies, it has been posited that this dust is formed
in the ejecta of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe). For this to be the case, it
has been estimated that each CCSN would need to produce >0.1 M. of dust. To
investigate this hypothesis, we have collated multi-epoch late-time optical spectra
for fourteen CCSNe. We have used the DAMOCLES Monte Carlo radiative transfer
code to model the dust-affected optical line profiles of the CCSNe in our sample.
We confirm a dust mass growth with time which can be fitted by a sigmoid curve,
where dust mass growth is found to saturate beyond an age of
~30 years, at a
mass of 0.25 +- 0.09 M. For an expanded sample that includes a range of dust mass
estimates from the literature for CCSNe and supernova remnants, the dust mass at
saturation is found to be 0.45 +- 0:04 M. Most of the best-fitting line profile models
for our sample all required grain radii between 0.1 and 0.5 mm. We also present a
novel method for determining the mass of dust contained within spatially resolved
oxygen-rich supernova remnants, which compares the relative fluxes measured in
similar apertures from [O III] far-infrared and visual-region emission lines in order to
determine internal dust optical depths, from which corresponding dust masses can be
obtained. With this method we determine a dust mass within Cas A of 0.99 +0:10-0:09 M.
We conclude that it is likely CCSNe are the main stellar producers of cosmic dust in
the Universe.