Journal
PRECISION ENGINEERING-JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR PRECISION ENGINEERING AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
Volume 44, Issue -, Pages 70-74Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.precisioneng.2015.10.003
Keywords
Vacuum-assisted imprinting; UV imprint; Artificial compound eye; Nonplanar surface
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Funding
- Chinese University of Hong Kong [4055014]
- HKSAR Innovation and Technology Commission under the Innovation and Technology Fund [ITS/251/11, ITS 129/14]
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This paper reports a vacuum-assisted UV imprinting system for parallel fabrication of micro-lens arrays on a spherical dome for artificial compound eye applications. Artificial compound eyes are a kind of micro-optics structure inspired by insect eyes. They offer unique optical characteristics, e.g., wide field of view (FOV), high sensitivity and light weight, in a compact arrangement with miniaturized lens arrays on a curved surface. In practice, it has been a great challenge to precisely fabricate micro-lens arrays on curved substrates at reasonable cost. The UV imprinting system was developed to ensure conformal contact between a soft elastomeric stamp and a convex substrate, i.e., dome, coated with UV-curable resins. The pressure-driven stamp enables large-area direct formation of high fill factor hexagonal micro lens arrays through soft UV imprint processes. The geometrical characteristics, surface quality and optical properties of the micro-lens array were characterized quantitatively, e.g., NA = 0.06; RMS similar to lambda/50. Lastly, the optical performance of the artificial compound eyes was demonstrated by an ultra-wide angle imaging experiment under uniform illumination. The vacuum imprinting system presents a new manufacturing platform for fabricating 3-dimensional structures on nonplanar substrates in a parallel and cost effective way. The fabricated compound eye structure will be particularly useful in the areas of multi-channel imaging, machine vision, and surveillance. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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