A novel micromachining technology for structuring borosilicate glass substrates

• Published in: TRANSDUCERS '03. 12th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems. Digest of Technical Papers (Cat. No.03TH8664) Vol. 1; pp. 258 - 261 vol.1
• Main Authors: Merz, P., Quenzer, H.J., Bernt, H., Wanger, B., Zoberbier, M.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2003
• Subjects: Glass; Lenses; Machining; Micromachining; Optical arrays; Optical device fabrication; Silicon; Surface topography; Temperature; Wafer bonding
• ISBN: 9780780377318; 0780377311
• DOI: 10.1109/SENSOR.2003.1215302

We present a novel process technology, which enables precision micro machining of glass wafers. With this Glass Flow Process GFP which is based on viscous deformation at temperatures above the glass transition temperature T/sub g/, any surface topography available on a silicon substrate can be moulded into Borosilicate glasses, especially into bondable glasses like Borofloat or Pyrex. Beside the replication of silicon structures this technique allows the fabrication of optical micro lens arrays with high aspect ratios and minimum spacing. Introducing this GFP technology to MEMS processing enables the deep structuring of glass substrates and opens a wide range of new applications. Optical quality micro lenses with saggital heights above 100 /spl mu/m are demonstrated. In this paper an insight description of the GFP technology is given and the functionality of this new technology is presented by optical measurements of micro lens demonstrators.