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pps proceeding
Symposium: Nanocomposite Materials & Processing
Oral Presentation
 
 

Mass production of micro-optical elements

Altana Mirco (1)*

(1) Heptagon Advanced Micro Optics - Zürich - Switzerland

In the last decade micro-optics fabrication technologies have undergone a transition from prototyping to mass production methods for a wide range of different applications, including high-volume consumer electronics. Besides of other fabrication technologies, UV replication offers a wide range of advantageous key properties for many applications in consumer electronics. The simultaneous replication of several thousand individual components on glass wafers provides excellent scalability. Typical components for datacom applications or optical sensors require relatively shallow refractive lenses and diffractive structures, resulting in polymer films with a thickness in the range of 50 – 100 µm on the substrate wafer. Lens diameters and sags for imaging optics can be significantly higher than for typical micro-optical elements. Diameters usually are in the range of 0.3 – 3 mm and sags can reach up to 500 µm, while keeping the form errors in the sub-100 nm range. All the processes in the fabrication chain, from mastering to replication and dicing, were developed with focus on accuracy, turn-around time and manufacturing yield. The first step in the production of micro optical structures consists of the mastering of (in most cases) individual elements. They can be created by different techniques like micromachining, grey tone lithography, direct laser writing, e-beam, etc. These single master elements are then replicated on a flat substrate in a first step for the scale-up for mass production. High fidelity and high throughput replication of 8” or larger master wafers is a key competence of Heptagon. High speed jetting systems, good alignment capability and the patented spacer technology lead to high quality mass production. In addition, stacking of replicated optics wafers and / or PCB assemblies with micrometer precision has been added to the technology portfolio. This enables the fabrication of miniature, reflowable cameras, opto-electronic sensor modules and complex illumination systems for mobile applications. Over the last years a large database of materials with specific mechanical and optical properties has been elaborated.