Fabrication of Eight Level Micro-lenses

As imaging and photonics technology is advancing to smaller and complex devices there is increasing interest in applications that make use of small micro-level optical elements such as micro-lenses. Micro-lens fabrication is useful in developing diffractive optical elements (DOE’s) that are used in optical communication, optical storage, optical interconnection, optical information processing and micro-optical sensors. Another area where micro-lens fabrication can be used is in characterization and optimization of illuminating sources of lithographic projection systems. The objective of this project was to fabricate eight level micro-lenses on a 5”X5” quartz substrate designed for the 193nm exposing wavelength. A micro-lens is fabricated as a Fresnel Zone Target (FZT) pattern which can be used to characterize and optimize the illuminating source of a lithographic projection system. Developing a fabrication procedure for eight level micro-lenses will be helpful for further research work in manufacturing micro-optical elements at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Semiconductor and Microsystems Fabrication Laboratory