New Fabrication Method of Plastic Micro-Lens Arrays for Researching on Compound Eyes of Insects

Toshiyuki Horiuchi, Ryunosuke Sasaki

2016

Abstract

To develop artificial compound eyes, sizes of element lenses of typical insects were actually investigated, and a new simple and low-cost method for fabricating plastic micro-lens arrays was developed. It was thought essential to research on artificial compound eyes that lens parameters were freely controllable by our minds. For this reason, a new easy and low-cost fabrication method had to be developed. In the new method, original molds of micro-lens arrays with concave profiles were formed lithographically in a thick resist film. The concave resist patterns were printed using a handmade 1/19 reduction projection exposure system by only one exposure. Using intentionally defocused exposure, curvature radiuses were controllable in a very wide range of 21-85 μm for the same transparent hexagon patterns with an inscribed circle diameter of 26.3 μm. It was also verified that the resist-mold patterns were faithfully replicated to epoxy resin. After pouring the liquid resin onto the silicon wafer chip with resist-mold patterns, hardened solid resin with micro-lens arrays was separated from the wafer chip by peeling off the wafer chip mechanically. It is promising to fabricate micro-lens arrays with aimed lens parameters although some more subjects should be cared from now on.

References

  1. Bowden, N., Brittain, S., Evans, A. G. John et al., 1998. Spontaneous formation of ordered structures in thin films of metals supported on an elastomeric polymer, NATURE 393 (1998) 146-149.
  2. Cao, Z., Zhai, C., Wang, K., 2015. Design of artificial spherical super position compound eye, Optics Communications 356, 218-222.
  3. Chen, F., Liu, H., Yang, Q. et al., 2010. Maskless fabrication of concave microlens arrayson silica glasses by a femtosecond-laser-enhanced local wet etching method, OPTICS EXPRESS 18, 20334- 20343.
  4. Chen, H., Shen, X., Li, X., Jin, Y., 2011. Bionic Mosaic Method of Panoramic Image Based on Commpound Eye of Fly, Journal of Bionic Engineering 8, 440-448.
  5. Cheng, H. C., Huang, C. F., Lin, Y. et al., 2010. Brightness field distributions of microlens arrays using micro molding, OPTICS EXPRESS 18, 26888-26904.
  6. Chiu, C. C., Lee, Y. C., 2011. Fabricating of aspheric micro-lens array by excimer laser micromachining, Optics and Lasers in Engineering 49, 1232-1237.
  7. Deng, Z., Chen, F., Yang, Q. et al., 2012. A facile method to fabricate close-packed concave microlens array on cylindrical glass, J. Micromech. Microeng. 22, 115026 (7pp).
  8. Duparré, J., Dannberg, P., Schreiber, P., Bräuer, A., and Tünnermann, A., 2005. Thin compound-eye camera, APPLIED OPTICS 44 , 2949-2956.
  9. Genzer, J. and Groenewold, J., 2006. Soft matter with hard skin: From skin wrinkles to templating and material characterization, Soft Matter 2 (2006) 310-323.
  10. Hirota, K., Ozaki, M. and Horiuchi, T., 2003. Low-cost and High-Performance Micro-Fabrication Method Using Low Numerical-Aperture Optical Projection Lithography on Copper-Clad Plastic Boards, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 42, 4031-4036.
  11. Jeong, K. H., Kim, J., Lee, L. P., 2006. Biologically Inspired Artificial Compound eye, Science 312, 557- 561.
  12. Jiang, W., Hu, S., He, Y., Bu, Y., 2015. An artificial compound eye of photon sieves, Optics & Laser Technology 74, 93-96.
  13. Kim, J. Y., Brauer, N. B., Fakhfouri, V. et al., 2011. Hybrid polymer microlens arrays with high numerical apertures fabricated using simple ink-jet printing technique, OPTICAL MATERIALS EXPRESS 1, 259- 269.
  14. Kuang, D., Zhang, X., Gui, M., and Fang, Z., 2009. Hexagonal microlens array fabricated by direct laser writing and inductively coupled plasma etching on organic light emitting devices to enhance the outcoupling efficiency, APPLIED OPTICS 48, 974- 978.
  15. Li, F., Chen, S., Luo, H., Gao, Y., 2013. Curved micro lens array for bionic compound eye, Optik 124,1346-1349.
  16. Liu, K.H., Chen, M.F., Pan, C.T. et al., 2010. Fabrication of various dimensions of high fill-factor micro-lens arrays for OLED package, Sensors and Actuators A 159, 126- 134.
  17. Luoa, Y., Wanga, L., Dinga, Y. et al., 2013. Direct fabrication of microlens arrays with high numerical aperture by ink-jetting on nanotextured surface, Applied Surface Science 279, 36- 40.
  18. Ma, K. Y., Chirarattananon, P., Fuller, S. B., Wood, R. J., 2013. Controlled Flight of a Biologically Inspired, Insect-Scale Robot, SCIENCE 340, 603-607.
  19. Neu, S. et al., 2015. Excellent Structure-Based Multifunction of Morpho Butterfly Wings: A Review, Journal of Bionic Engineering 12, 170-189.
  20. Niu, S., Li, B., Mu, Z. et al., 2015. Excellent StructureBased Multifunction of Morpho Butterfly Wings: A Review, Journal of Bionic Engineering 12, 170-189.
  21. Ogata, S., Ishida, J., Sasano, T., 1994. Optical sensor array in an artificial compound eye, Optical Engineering, 33, 3649-3655.
  22. Pan, C.T., Su, C.H., 2007. Fabrication of gapless triangular micro-lens array, Sensors and Actuators A 134, 631- 640.
  23. Saito, A., Yoshioka, S., Kinoshita, S., 2004. Reproduction of the Morpho butterfly's blue: arbitration of contradicting factors, SPIE 5526 (2004) 188-194.
  24. Sanders, J. S., Halford, C. E., 1995. Design and analysis of apposition compound eye optical sensors, Optical Engineering, 34, 222-235.
  25. Tanida, J., Kumagai, T., Yamada et al., 2001. Thin observation module by bound optics (TOMBO): concept and experimental verification, APPLIED OPTICS, 40, 1806-1813.
  26. Voigt, A., Ostrzinskia, U., Pfeiffer, K. et al., 2011. New inks for the direct drop-on-demand fabrication of polymer lenses, Microelectronic Engineering 88, 2174-2179.
  27. Wang, S. Y., 2005. Computer simulation for the fabrication of hexagonal micro lens arrays by use of the dragging process with an excimer laser, OPTICS EXPRESS 13, 5600-5607.
  28. Wu, H., Odom, T. W. and Whitesides, G. M., 2002. Reduction Photolithography Using Microlens Arrays: Applications in Gray Scale Photolithography, Analytical Chemistry, 74, 3267-3273.
  29. Yang, J. J., Liao, Y. S., Chen, C. F., 2007. Fabrication of long hexagonal micro-lens array by applying gray-scale lithography in micro-replication process, Optics Communications 270, 433-440.
  30. Zhu, X., Zhun, L., Chen, H. et al., 2015. Fabrication of high numerical aperture micro-lens array based on drop-ondemand generating of water-based molds, Optics & Laser Technology 68, 23-27.
Download


Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Horiuchi T. and Sasaki R. (2016). New Fabrication Method of Plastic Micro-Lens Arrays for Researching on Compound Eyes of Insects . In Proceedings of the 9th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: BIODEVICES, (BIOSTEC 2016) ISBN 978-989-758-170-0, pages 40-47. DOI: 10.5220/0005666900400047


in Bibtex Style

@conference{biodevices16,
author={Toshiyuki Horiuchi and Ryunosuke Sasaki},
title={New Fabrication Method of Plastic Micro-Lens Arrays for Researching on Compound Eyes of Insects},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 9th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: BIODEVICES, (BIOSTEC 2016)},
year={2016},
pages={40-47},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0005666900400047},
isbn={978-989-758-170-0},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 9th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: BIODEVICES, (BIOSTEC 2016)
TI - New Fabrication Method of Plastic Micro-Lens Arrays for Researching on Compound Eyes of Insects
SN - 978-989-758-170-0
AU - Horiuchi T.
AU - Sasaki R.
PY - 2016
SP - 40
EP - 47
DO - 10.5220/0005666900400047