Lithography with UV-LED array for curved surface structure

Abstract

The technology to fabricate high-aspect ratio and micro curved surface structures is needed for optical device fabrication such as micro lens, light guiding device, and so on. In this study, micro curved surface structures were fabricated by using novel lithography technique with UV-LED array and rotary stage (Hanai et al. in Proceedings of the 22nd sensor symposium, pp 516–519, 2005). Smooth surface structures can be fabricated in this technique, because UV-LED which has wide directivity characteristics makes the difference of the UV dose. In addition, the structures can be formed with high uniformity in large area by only one exposure process, because rotation reduces the unevenness of exposure. This technique can control the shapes of structures by changing exposure time and applying gray scale mask method (Waits et al. in Sensors Actuat A 119:245–253, 2005). We fabricated structures of hemisphere, semi-cylinder, and semi-cone by using this technique. High-aspect ratio structures were obtained and they had smooth curved surface. Then, they were used for micro lens fabrication. By using molding technique, micro lenses of the UV curable resin were fabricated on the silicon wafer.