IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 35, NO.

13, 1 JULY 2023 705

Femtosecond Laser Fabrication of SiC Microlens

Arrays as Integrated Light Homogenizer and Splitter
Jia-Xin Zheng , Ming-Rui Guo , Mei-Ling Luan , Bao-Xu Wang , Hua Fan,
Ai-Wu Li , and Xue-Qing Liu , Member, IEEE

Abstract— Silicon carbide (SiC) plays a vital role in special proposed for processing hard materials, including photolithog-
optics because of its stable physicochemical and excellent optical raphy [10], focused ion beam etching [11], electron beam
properties; however, making the fabrication of SiC considerably etching [12], and diamond turning [13]. Among them, the
more difficult. In this study, femtosecond laser-assisted induc-
tively coupled plasma etching (ICP) technology is proposed to
diamond-turning method has low machining accuracy, which
achieve the efficient fabrication of large-area microlens arrays on is unsuitable for high-precision fabrication. The rest of the
the surface of silicon carbide. As an illustration, the microlens methods can achieve nanometer-level fabrication accuracy.
array was used for high-quality beam homogenization (unifor- However, the fabrication process is inefficient and is used
mity is up to 90%) of the transmitted and reflected Gaussian light for two-dimensional structure fabrication. Femtosecond laser
beams with a wavelength of 532 nm. The beam-splitting ratio can processing technology [14], [15], [16], [17], [18] can achieve
be dy-namically adjusted (from 1.2 to 3.2) by controlling the angle high-precision and complex three-dimensional structure fab-
of the incident light, indicating that the SiC microlens arrays can rication compared with the above methods. However, high-
act as an integrated optical homogenizer and beam splitter. This energy laser ablation of the material often results in a rough
method demonstrates the broad application prospects of SiC in surface structure, making it difficult to meet optical require-
miniaturized and integrated special optics and provides new ideas
for further applications of SiC in integrated optical systems.
ments. To solve this problem, a femtosecond laser-assisted
etching technology is proposed, which can achieve highly
Index Terms— Femtosecond laser processing, silicon carbide, smooth micro-optical component fabrication by combining
dry-assisted etching, microlens arrays. it with subsequent etching [19]. However, the wet-etching
process of SiC crystals tends to be anisotropic. The etching
I. I NTRODUCTION rate varied for the different crystal orientations. Moreover, the

S ILICON carbide (SiC), which is a widely used third-

generation semiconductor, has potential applications in
optoelectronics and high-power electronics owing to its excel-
material is prone to corrosion pits, which affect the surface
quality [20]. The fabrication of complex micro-nano silicon
carbide structures with high precision and surface quality
lent properties such as high breakdown voltage and high remains a significant challenge.
mechanical and temperature stability [1], [2], [3]. Particularly, In this study, femtosecond laser-assisted inductively coupled
SiC is suitable for optical applications in harsh environmental plasma etching (ICP) technology is proposed to achieve the
conditions, including strong radiation and high temperature efficient fabrication of large-area SiC microlens arrays. The
and pressure, owing to its high transmittance from visible to surface of the SiC was modified using a femtosecond laser,
near-infrared wavelengths and high optical damage threshold and the modified area was subsequently etched out of the
[4], [5], [6]. For example, SiC ceramic materials have been lens structure using inductively coupled plasma etching. The
widely used in aerospace scanning mirrors, reflectors, and etched microlenses had good morphology and high surface
optical systems [7], [8], [9]. quality. Simultaneously, the size of individual lenses can be
However, these properties make it more difficult to fabricate adjusted by regulating the degree of laser modification of the
SiC microstructures. Thus far, various technologies have been material. Finally, large-area rapid fabrication of a high-surface-
quality silicon carbide microlens array is realized. A microlens
Manuscript received 1 February 2023; revised 13 April 2023; accepted array was used for high-quality beam homogenization of
4 May 2023. Date of publication 8 May 2023; date of current version
22 May 2023. This work was supported in part by the National Natural
the transmitted and reflected Gaussian light beams with a
Science Foundation of China under Grant 61960206003, Grant 62105117, wavelength of 532 nm. The uniformity of the spot reached
Grant 62175086, and Grant 62131018; and in part by the Major Science 92%. The beam-splitting ratio can be dynamically adjusted
and Technology Projects in Jilin Province under Grant 20220301003GX. from 1.2 to 3.2 by controlling the angle of the incident light.
(Corresponding author: Xue-Qing Liu.)
Jia-Xin Zheng, Ming-Rui Guo, Mei-Ling Luan, Bao-Xu Wang, Ai-Wu Li,
and Xue-Qing Liu are with the State Key Laboratory on Integrated Opto- II. E XPERIMENTAL S ETUP
electronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin Univer- In the experiment, the SiC surface (4H-SiC, 500µm thick,
sity, Changchun 130012, China (e-mail: [email protected]; guomr99@
126.com; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];
Synlight Crystal) was first wiped several times with acetone
[email protected]). and ethanol. Subsequently, the sample was sonicated in deion-
Hua Fan is with the State Key Laboratory of Precision Measure- ized water for 5 min to obtain a clean silicon carbide surface.
ment Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instrument, The laser source was a femtosecond laser with a repetition
Tsinghua University, Haidian, Beijing 100084, China (e-mail: fanh_2020@ rate of 200 kHz, pulse width of 280 fs, and wavelength of
tsinghua.org.cn).
Color versions of one or more figures in this letter are available at 1030 nm (Light Conversion Pharos). The laser was focused
https://doi.org/10.1109/LPT.2023.3274353. using an objective lens with a magnification of 40× and
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LPT.2023.3274353 a numerical aperture of 0.6 to achieve higher precision.
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706 IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 35, NO. 13, 1 JULY 2023

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the fabrication process.

Fig. 2. Relationship between laser power (a) and number of pulses (b) on Fig. 3. SEM image of the large area (a) and the local enlargement (b) SiC
the depth and diameter of the microlens. microlens array. (c) The three-dimensional morphology of microlens array,
(d) focusing performance of microlens array, (e) cross-sectional data of
microlens array, and (f) AFM image of the microlens array.
A three-dimensional motion stage (Newport, the stroke of
the x- and y-axes is 5 cm, the stroke along the z-axis is in Fig. 2(b). The surface modification of the SiC increased as
5 mm, and the accuracy is 100 nm) was used to fabricate the number of pulses increased when the number of pulses
the surface microstructure of SiC. After femtosecond laser was low. The depth and diameter of the etched microlens
irradiation, the surface of silicon carbide formed a laser- were also increased. As the number of laser pulses is fur-
modified area. The physicochemical properties of the modified ther increased, the SiC surface is oxidized to form a mask,
area changed. Then, the SiC sample was etched by SF6 and O2 inhibiting the etching process. The depth and diameter of the
in an inductively coupled plasma etching system (TAILONG SiC microlens were gradually reduced. Therefore, a shape-
ELECTRONICS, ICP-100A) with gas flow rates of 100 and controlled microlens array can be fabricated by controlling
20 sccm, respectively. The samples were processed at an laser fabrication parameters.
antenna RF power and bias RF power of 500 and 200 W Based on the above conclusions, we fabricated a 1 × 1 cm
for 5h. The subsequent ICP etching is in two stages. During large-area SiC microlens arrays with a period of 10µm dense
the initial etching stage, the laser-modified region is quickly stacking arrangement. Through scanning electron microscopy
removed and formed concave structures. Subsequently, the (SEM) (Figs. 3(a), (b)), a three-dimensional pattern of confocal
concave structures expanded along with etching time in the microscopy (Fig. 3(c)) and a cross-sectional view of this
stable etching stage. Finally, SiC microlens arrays with smooth structure (Fig. 3(e)) can be observed. This approach enables
surfaces were obtained through dry etching, as shown in Fig. 1. the fabrication of large-area silicon carbide microlens arrays
with a good surface morphology. Furthermore, we tested
the focusing performance of the SiC microlens array by the
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION white LED point light source and atomic force microscopy
The degree of modification determines the dry etching rate (AFM), as shown in Figs. 3(d) and (f), respectively. Inter-
of the laser-irradiated area. Achieving areas with different cepting a 1 µm × 1 µm square centered on the bottom
degrees of modification is possible by adjusting the laser of the microlens to characterize the roughness Rq results in
power and number of laser pulses. The morphologies of the 5 nm. The microlens arrays were found to have good optical
microlenses were characterized using different laser parame- properties and high surface quality. This is crucial for the
ters. The relationship between the depth and diameter of the subsequent homogenization and beam-splitting applications of
SiC microlenses was obtained for different laser powers and silicon carbide microlens arrays.
numbers of laser pulses, as shown in Fig. 2(a). The depth Microlens arrays [23], which have the advantages of having
and diameter of the SiC concave microlens showed a gradual a small size, light weight, easy integration, and greater versa-
in-crease as the femtosecond laser power increased. Higher tility, are used for beam homogenization. Homogenizers are
energy causes greater damage to the single crystal structure of used together with beam splitters. The use of beam splitters
SiC, resulting in larger modified areas that are easier to etch allows the high-power laser beam to be split into multiple
[21], [22]. low-power laser beams and allows larger areas to be processed
Therefore, the dry etching rate was accelerated, and the simultaneously. However, as laser power increases, the optics
size of the silicon carbide microlens increased. The depth and of many integrated systems cannot withstand the high laser
diameter of the SiC microlens gradually increased and then power. Integrated optics with high damage thresholds are
decreased as the number of laser pulses increased, as shown ideal for high-power industrial systems and applications [24],

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ZHENG et al.: FEMTOSECOND LASER FABRICATION OF SiC MICROLENS ARRAYS 707

Fig. 5. Angular dependence of SiC lens arrays. (a) Simulated results

of sample transmittance versus incident angle and wavelength. (b) Angular
resolution spectrometer test results. (c) Comparison of experimental and
simulated data at a wavelength of 532 nm. (d) Angular variation curves of
transmitted and reflected homogenized beams.
Fig. 4. (a) Experimental system for beam homogenization and splitting of SiC
microlens arrays. The spot diagram, 3D intensity distribution, and intensity
cross-section of the incident light (b)-(d), the transmitted (e)-(g), and reflected
(h)-(j) homogenized beam at the incident angle of 45◦ . ξ = (1 − R M S) × 100% (2)

[25], [26]. Silicon carbide, which can withstand high-power where I¯ is the average energy of the homogenized spot, I j
lasers, is a promising material for the fabrication of these is the energy of each point of the homogenized spot, N is
devices. A microlens array was used for high-quality beam the number of sampling points, and ξ is the spot uniformity.
homogenization of the transmitted and reflected Gaussian light This method has statistical properties and is generally used
beams. to evaluate the spot uniformity. In the experiment, the spot
The beam homogenization and beam splitting effects were uniformity is obtained by calculating the intensity distribution
tested using a self-built test system. The light beam sequen- of the homogenized spot. After homogenization of the SiC
tially passed through the SiC sample and the Fourier lens lens array, the calculated spot uniformity reached 92%, which
(focal length is 100 mm, F) to reach the print letter, where achieved good homogenization performance. Figs. 4(b)-(j)
it was finally collected by the CCD. Beam homogenization show the transmission and reflection of the homogenized beam
of the microlens array consisted of two steps. The first is from the SiC microlens array at an incident angle of 45◦ .
cutting the light field by silicon carbide with a uniformly The optical photograph of the incident spot (Fig. 4(b)), three-
arranged microlens array, and the second is resuperpositioning dimensional intensity map (Fig. 4(c)), and cross-sectional data
the cut light field using a Fourier lens. The wavefront of (Fig. 4(d)) show that the intensity distribution of the incident
the incident beam is split into a number of small waves as beam is not uniform and exhibit a Gaussian distribution.
light passes through the array of microlenses. Every focus of After passing through the SiC microlens array, the trans-
these microlenses (focal length, f) continued to propagate as mission (Figs. 4(e)-(g)) and reflection (Figs. 4(h)-(j)) beams
a separate light source. The transmitted and reflected light were homogenized with a more uniform spot. Meanwhile,
are the concave imaginary and convex real focal points of a transmission to reflection-homogenized beams ratio of 2:1
the microlens respectively. The distance from the Fresnel was achieved at 45◦ .
lens is thus F - f and F + f. Subsequently, these wavelets Furthermore, the silicon carbide microlens array can also be
pass through a Fourier lens and are superimposed on the used as a beam splitter. And the beam splitting ratio can be
screen. The distance of the camera from the Fresnel lens is F. adjusted by adjusting the angle of the incident light. Fig. 5(a)
A homogenized beam with uniform light intensity was formed. shows the simulated results (by COMSOL Multiphysics) of
The homogenized beam of the reflected and transmitted light sample transmittance versus incident angle and wavelength.
was simultaneously obtained using a CCD detector, as shown The transmittance of light passing through the sample gradu-
in Fig. 4(a). In the experiments, we selected a laser with ally decreased as the angle gradually increased. Moreover, the
a wavelength of 532 nm as the incident light source. The transmittance gradually increased as the wavelength increased,
light was incident on the silicon carbide sample to obtain which was determined by the dispersion properties of SiC.
transmission and reflection homogenized beams. The homoge- Then, the angular-resolution spectrometer was used to measure
nized light intensity distribution was obtained by extracting the the transmission spectrum of the sample as a function of angle
picture light intensity data. Spot homogeneity can be analyzed (Fig. 5(b)), and the results were consistent with the simulation
by calculating the root mean square error (RMS) and spot data. Comparing the experimental and simulated results at
uniformity (ξ ), which are expressed as 532 nm in the actual experiment, the trends are the same
v
u N (Fig. 5(c)). The transmittance values were smaller than the
uX 2 simulated values because of the absorption and scattering of
RMS = t (I j − I¯) /N (1) the structured sample during the actual measurement. Finally,
j we tested the incident, transmitted, and reflected homogenized

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708 IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 35, NO. 13, 1 JULY 2023

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