<title>Planar microlens arrays using stumping replication method</title>

Abstract

ABSTRACTA planar micro lens array, in which a surface.relief micro lens array is built into the glass substrate using a stamping replication method, has been developed for parallel optical components. The planar micro lens array has completely flat surfaces on both sides, and therefore other parallel optical devices can be monolithically composed in tandem.Furthermore, a high thermal reliability for axial alignment is made possible by the adoption of the same material of the substrate as that of the others.In this paper, we review the fabrication method of this planar micro lens array using a stamping replication method and discuss the advantages of its use with Liquid Crystal Displays. 1. INTRODUCTIONMicro lens arrays have become promising devices for use in optical parallel componentssuch as display systems'2, optical communication systems, optical interconnection systemsand so on. Surface-relief micro lens arrays in particular, provide a number of advantages:1) the relief structure can be fabricated by a fully replicating process which enable low-costproduction, 2) the original relief structure can be formed flexibly using a semiconductorfabrication technique, and 3) by using diffractive optics, excellent focusing characteristicscan be expected.3.However, surface- relief micro lens arrays suffer from a poor integration capability and