Fabrication, replication, and characterization of microlenses for optofluidic applications

摘要

Here we report Direct Laser Writing (DLW) based fabrication of aspheric microlenses out of hybrid organic-inorganic photopolymer ORMOSIL. Using the advantages of the flexible manufacturing technique the produced microlenses are embedded inside a fluidic channel. Applying the soft-lithography molding technique the structures are transferred to the elastomer PDMS and hydrogel PEG-DA-258 materials. Measurements show that such replica transferring can reproduce the initial structures into other materials on desired substrates with no noticeable losses of quality. Furthermore, it makes femtosecond laser redundant once the original structure is made. The embedded structures are immersed into several liquid media (acetone, methanol) and the focusing performance corresponding to the change of the optical path length of the microlenses is obtained. It well matches with the estimated values. In conclusion, we report a combination of laser fabrication and replication methods as an efficient way to produce optofluidic components, which can be used for light based sensing, trapping or other applications such as MOEMS devices.