Optical-Fiber-Matrix Exposure Using Light-Emitting-Diode Sources

Abstract

A new projection exposure method without using reticles was proposed, and the feasibility of printing arbitrary patterns was investigated. The preparation of expensive reticles is not favorable for the small-volume production of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), optomechanical systems, and their components. On the other hand, long turnaround time (TAT) becomes a fatal bottleneck preventing the rapid follow-up of various design changes. As a countermeasure, we previously proposed a new exposure method named optical-fiber-matrix exposure. In this method, patterns are delineated by superimposing light spots from an optical-fiber matrix, and expensive reticles are not necessary. Therefore, patterns are easily changeable by controlling the pattern delineation program. However, in the previous method, light rays from one intensive lamp were divided and switched using small mechanical shutters placed at each fiber entrance, and the shutters were not sufficiently reliable. For this reason, violet light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were used in this research in place of the lamp source and mechanical shutters, and the light or dark state at each optical fiber end was controlled using a microcomputer that switched each LED attached to each fiber entrance one by one. Since the illuminance of each LED was different, LEDs with approximately the same illuminance were selectively used, and each illuminance was adjusted to be uniform by inserting an individual color filter. Thus, the widths of patterns printed by scanning different fiber elements were homogenized. Since lineand-space patterns and various alphabet patterns were successfully printed, the feasibility of fabricating a large-scale opticalfiber matrix was also investigated. An optical-fiber line matrix composed of more than 330 fibers was fabricated without including any gaps between neighbor fibers. There will probably be no fatal problems to enlarge the matrix scale. Although the exposure speed should be improved, the new matrix exposure technique using light-emitting diodes should be of practical use.