Flow Performance and Its Effect on Shape Formation in PDMS Assisted Thermal Reflow Process

Gong, Shanshan; Shi, Cuicui; Li, Mujun

doi:10.3390/app12168282

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 27 publications

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“…Compared with the above technologies, the thermal reflow process provides a viable route for efficiently fabricating large-area microlens arrays. This process forms spherical microlenses with a smooth surface and uniform dimensions based on the liquid surface tension effect [34][35][36][37]. This method adopts common semiconductor processes to simultaneously manufacture all the microlens units, resulting in equally short processing times, even for large-area microstructures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fabrication of Large-Area Silicon Spherical Microlens Arrays by Thermal Reflow and ICP Etching

Wu,

Dong,

Wang

et al. 2024

Micromachines

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In this paper, we proposed an efficient and high-precision process for fabricating large-area microlens arrays using thermal reflow combined with ICP etching. When the temperature rises above the glass transition temperature, the polymer cylinder will reflow into a smooth hemisphere due to the surface tension effect. The dimensional differences generated after reflow can be corrected using etching selectivity in the following ICP etching process, which transfers the microstructure on the photoresist to the substrate. The volume variation before and after reflow, as well as the effect of etching selectivity using process parameters, such as RF power and gas flow, were explored. Due to the surface tension effect and the simultaneous molding of all microlens units, machining a 3.84 × 3.84 mm2 silicon microlens array required only 3 min of reflow and 15 min of ICP etching with an extremely low average surface roughness Sa of 1.2 nm.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%