Replication technology for optical microsystems

Replication technology is playing an increasingly important role in the production of optical microsystems and micro-optical elements. Hot embossing, injection moulding and UV-embossing all can produce high-quality optical elements in very cost-effective processes. New sol–gel materials allow the co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics and lasers in engineering 2005-03, Vol.43 (3-5), p.373-386
Main Authors: Gale, Michael T., Gimkiewicz, Christiane, Obi, Samuel, Schnieper, Marc, Söchtig, Jürgen, Thiele, Hans, Westenhöfer, Susanne
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Diffractive optics
Micro-optics
Optical microsystems
Replication
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Summary:Replication technology is playing an increasingly important role in the production of optical microsystems and micro-optical elements. Hot embossing, injection moulding and UV-embossing all can produce high-quality optical elements in very cost-effective processes. New sol–gel materials allow the combination of replication with lithography to leave selected areas material-free for sawing and bonding. The development of wafer-scale replication technology using UV-curable sol–gel and polymer materials enables refractive and diffractive micro-optical elements as well as micro-mechanical alignment features to be replicated directly onto glass substrates or onto semiconductor device wafers. Grating nanostructures with linewidths less than 100nm have been replicated into polymer and sol–gel materials for the cost-effective fabrication of large area subwavelength structures for applications such as polarisers and buried grating security features.
ISSN:0143-8166
1873-0302
DOI:10.1016/j.optlaseng.2004.02.007