Microlenses are a suitable approach to improve the performance of optical systems. An important optical efficiency determining parameter is the fill factor, which describes the relation of the lens area to the total optical active area. In this work, an optimization of the fill factor by optimizing the fabrication process steps is presented. The approach here is the use of i-line waferstepper lithography in combination with thermal reflow of photoresist and subsequent 1:1 pattern transfer in the lens material by reactive ion etching. For this method, the fill factor is determined by the minimum lens gap and, thus, the optical efficiency is strongly limited by the resolution limit of the i-line waferstepper lithography (350 nm). The goal of this investigation is to achieve the lowest possible lens gap even below the stepper-based resolution limit by optimizing each single process step without developing a new approach. The final result of the optimization was a fill factor improvement of 15%.
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December 2024
Research Article|
October 22 2024
Scalable fabrication approach and fill factor optimization for single pixel microlens arrays
Jens Bonitz
;
Jens Bonitz
a)
(Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft)
1
Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: jens.bonitz@enas.fraunhofer.de
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Christian Helke
;
Christian Helke
(Supervision)
1
Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
2
Center for Micro and Nano Technologies (ZfM), University of Technology Chemnitz
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
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Nils Dittmar
;
Nils Dittmar
(Investigation)
1
Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
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Sebastian Schermer
;
Sebastian Schermer
(Investigation)
1
Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
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Micha Haase
;
Micha Haase
(Supervision)
1
Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
2
Center for Micro and Nano Technologies (ZfM), University of Technology Chemnitz
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
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Lutz Hofmann;
Lutz Hofmann
(Funding acquisition, Supervision)
1
Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
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Danny Reuter
Danny Reuter
(Supervision)
1
Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
2
Center for Micro and Nano Technologies (ZfM), University of Technology Chemnitz
, Chemnitz 09126, Germany
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a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: jens.bonitz@enas.fraunhofer.de
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 42, 062203 (2024)
Article history
Received:
September 04 2024
Accepted:
October 04 2024
Citation
Jens Bonitz, Christian Helke, Nils Dittmar, Sebastian Schermer, Micha Haase, Lutz Hofmann, Danny Reuter; Scalable fabrication approach and fill factor optimization for single pixel microlens arrays. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 1 December 2024; 42 (6): 062203. https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0004036
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