Fabrication of a compound infrared microlens array with ultrashort focal length using femtosecond laser-assisted wet etching and dual-beam pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

We present the design, fabrication, and characterization of a compound infrared microlens array having an ultrashort focal length and a hyperbolic profile that comprises a PDMS microlens array and a GRIN lens. A concave microlens mold was first fabricated on a fused silica substrate using femtosecond laser irradiation followed by a wet etching process, and a standard replication process was employed to fabricate a PDMS convex lens array. To shorten the focal length further and cut off the visible spectrum of light, a graded DLC/silicon coating, which functioned as a GRIN lens and a visible light cut-off filter, was additionally deposited using dual-beam pulsed laser deposition. The lenslet diameter was 6 µm and the graded coating reduced the focal length from 4.5 to 2.9 µm.