Full wafer microlens replication by UV imprint lithography

The fabrication of microlenses is of great interest for several applications in the field of optics like wafer level cameras, homogenization of light, and coupling of light into glass fibers. Especially for low-cost optical products, microlenses have to be fabricated with a high throughput at an adequate quality. One way to fulfil these requirements is the patterning of microlenses by UV imprint lithography (UV-IL). Within this work, microlenses were replicated into the UV curing material PAK-01 by step and stamp UV-IL on silicon substrates with a diameter of 150 mm. The resulting substrates were used as masters to cast PDMS templates. These PDMS templates can be used for high throughput full wafer UV-IL Additionally, quartz substrates with a diameter of 100 mm were patterned which could be directly used as so called optowafers. Master and patterned microlenses were inspected by scanning electron microscopy and with a white light profilometer. The results clearly demonstrate the excellent quality of the replication process and the capability of UV-IL to pattern microlenses on full wafer level for high throughput applications. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.