What is it about?
We use a quite exotic technology for the creation of micro-optical and micro-mechanical components with very high accuracy for various applications. The fabrication technology makes use of highly energetic protons which we use to irradiate a plastic sample. After this proton irradiation, the irradiated zones can be washed away such that we create micro-holes, micro-mirrors, micro-springs, etc. which can be used in applications like optical fiber connectors and labs-on-chips.
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Why is it important?
Optical fibers which are typically used in long-distance telecommunications have such a small core diameter (in which the light is guided), that connecting two of these fibers is very tricky since it needs to be done with an accuracy of the order of 1 micrometer or smaller. Therefore, there is a strong need for high-accuracy micro-mechanical components that allow such a high precision and hence enable a high coupling efficiency when interconnecting fibers. This is one example of the micro-components we can fabricate with our deep proton writing technology.
Perspectives
This paper presents the culmination of many years of technological efforts to enhance our prototyping technology of deep proton writing. We can say that we now have fully matured the technology. We have also shown that deep proton writing is also compatible with high-volume production through polymer replication, paving the way towards real-life mass-deployment of the fabricated devices.
Prof Jurgen Van Erps
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Deep proton writing with 12 MeV protons for rapid prototyping of microstructures in polymethylmethacrylate, Journal of Micro/Nanolithography MEMS and MOEMS, October 2016, SPIE,
DOI: 10.1117/1.jmm.15.4.044501.
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