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Refractive microlenses with more than 50 microm sag are fabricated using grayscale lithography. Mechanical assembly features are made simultaneously alongside the microlenses to facilitate high precision assembly of miniature optical systems. The microlens elements are formed using lithographic patterning of photosensitive hybrid sol-gel glass requiring no etch transfer to the substrate material. Grayscale lithography enables the straightforward patterning of aspheric lenses and arbitrary surfaces within the material depth. Lessons learned in the design of a grayscale photomask are described. Characterization of the fabricated lens elements is reported including lens shape, surface quality, and image quality of a complete assembled imaging system.

In this paper, we describe the progress toward the development of miniaturized imaging systems with applications in medical imaging, and specifically, detection of pre-cancer. The focus of the article is a miniature, optical-sectioning, fluorescence microscope. The miniature microscope is constructed from lithographically printed optics and assembled using a bulk micromachined silicon microoptical table. Optical elements have been printed in a negative tone hybrid glass to a maximum depth of 59 m and an rms surface roughness between 10-45 nm, fulfilling the requirements of the miniature microscope. Test optical elements have been assembled using silicon-spring equipped mounting slots. The design of silicon springs is presented in this paper. Optical elements can be assembled within the tolerances of an NA = 0 4 miniature microscope objective, confirming the concept of simple, zero-alignment assembly.

A novel solution to problematic ghost images is implemented by using tilted lens elements with polynomial surfaces. Tilting the lens surfaces sends reflections out of the imaging path. The nonrotationally symmetric polynomial surfaces correct aberrations caused by tilts. The complex lens surfaces are fabricated by using gray-scale lithographic patterning of hybrid solgel glass.

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