Reflow technique for the fabrication of an elliptical microlens array in sol-gel material

A simple reflow technique is employed for the fabrication of elliptical refractive microlens arrays (MLAs) on a low-cost inorganic-organic SiO2/ZrO2 sol-gel glass. The measured results show that the fabricated elliptical microlenses in a 256 X 512 array have excellent surface and dimensional qualities in terms of smoothness and uniformity. It is also shown that the optical parameters of the MLAs, such as the focal length and aperture dimension, can be accurately controlled. The proposed technique requires only an ordinary binary photomask for pattern transfer. Furthermore, the sol-gel material is found to be feasible for high-volume production, because the fabrication of MLAs can be implemented by use of cheap sol-gel materials without an etching step. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.