IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 11, NO.

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Microlens for Efcient Coupling Between LED and Optical Fiber

Eun-Hyun Park, Moon-Jung Kim, and Young-Se Kwon, Member, IEEE
AbstractA new fabrication method of a microlens is proposed that can be easily applied to optical devices and microlens systems. The proposed microlens is formed by self-surface tension and cohesion of UV curing material. Since the microlens is hardened by short time UV exposure, the fabrication process is very simple. Integration with surface emitting-light emitting diode (SE-LED) results in enhanced coupling to optical ber with coupling efciency larger than the conventional case by 1.5 times. We also made a hemispheric microlensed ber using this method. Compared with a typical arc-lensed ber and a at-end ber, the coupling efciency is improved to 18% and 40%, respectively. Index Terms Coupling, lenses, light-emitting diodes, optical bers.

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Fig. 1. Microlens pedestals. (a) Circular pillar shape by substrate etching. (b) Doughnut shape by substrate etching. (c) Circular pillar shape by photoresist. (d) Doughnut shape by photoresist.

I. INTRODUCTION ICROLENSES can be applied to optical devices such as emitters and detectors to boost the optical efciency [1]. Also, a microlens system using MEMS technology is used to change the optical path [2] and a microlens arrays are utilized for surface-normal optical interconnection [3]. Up to now, many fabrication methods for a microlens have been developed including surface micromachining [4], Ar ion-beam etching technique [5], and photoresist reow method [6]. But these methods suffer from complicated steps like precise etching process control and difculty in adjusting the microlens radius. New proposed method is very simple, and we can make good quality microlenses with radius ranging from a few tens of microns to a few hundreds of micrometers. In this letter, we propose a new fabrication technique of microlens with UV curing material. To demonstrate its application, the new microlens is applied to surface-emittinglightemitting diode (SE-LED) and multimode optical ber (MMF). II. MICROLENS FABRICATION For the fabrication of the proposed microlens, we used a viscous liquid material that could be hardened by UV exposure. When a viscous liquid material was dropped on a prepared circular pedestal, a hemispheric microlens was formed by self-surface tension and cohesion. Because the microlens is formed by surface tension, it can be applied to a variety of substrates including semiconductor and glass. Step 1) Formation of Circular Pedestals: There are three main purposes for the circular pedestal. First, it prevents
Manuscript received October 26, 1998; revised December 17, 1998. The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 373-1, Kusong-dong, Yusong-gu, Taejon 305-701, Korea. Publisher Item Identier S 1041-1135(99)02523-9.

the spreading of liquid material and denes the position of the microlens. Second, its radius denes the microlens radius. Third, its height determines the distance between the substrate and the microlens. In Fig. 1, we proposed several simple methods for the formation of circular pedestals. We can make pedestals by substrate etching [Fig. 1(a), (b)] or by photoresist patterning [Fig. 1(c), (d)]. In the second method, we can obtain an undercut shape of the circular pedestal by using the image reversal process of photoresist. After the image reversal process (PR: AZ5214, soft-baking (90 C): 4 min, rst UV exposure (10 mW/Cm ): 1 sec, Second-backing (120 C): 60 s, Second UV exposure: 15 s), the thickness of the pedestal [Fig. 1(c), (d)] is about 2 m. This shape is very useful for stopping the spreading and the overowing of injected liquid material. Step 2) Formation of Microlens: When UV curing liquid material (NOA77, viscosity: 5500 cps, refractive index: 1.51, m): 100%) is dropped on the optical transmission ( circular pedestal using a micro-injector or tapered optical ber, the microlens is formed by self-surface tension and cohesion. A micro-injector is used for a large microlens with a radius of a few hundred micrometers and the tapered optical ber is used for a small-size microlens the radius of which is a few tens of micrometers. Watching the shape of the microlens with a monitoring system, we control the injection quantity of the liquid material. When using the tapered ber for injection, the quantity of a one time drop is determined by the size of the tapered ber tip. The dropped microlens is hardened by shot time UV exposure (10 W, 2 s). The volumetric shrinkage when curing is 4%, and any deformation isnt observed at high temperature (120 C). The microlens size is mainly determined by the radius of the circular pedestal and controlled by the quantity of injected liquid material. Because the minimization of surface energy

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IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 11, NO. 4, APRIL 1999

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(b) Fig. 2. SEM pictures of (a) a microlens array and (b) a magnied microlens 40 m, pedestal radius = 70 m, lens, radius = 81 m). (lens height

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leads to a spherical shape, we can calculate the microlens from the following equations: radius

where is the height of the microlens, is the radius of is the quantity of injected liquid the circular pedestal and material as shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 2 shows SEM pictures of the microlens array fabricated by this way on InP substrate. The is 81 m where m, m microlens radius ml. From the SEM picture, we can see and that the fabricated microlens has a very smooth surface and good truncated spherical shape. The surface roughness of the microlens measured with Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is within 20 A. We think that the good surface quality results from self-forming characteristic by surface tension. III. INTEGRATION WITH SURFACE-EMITTING LED AND OPTICAL FIBER To demonstrate its application, we integrated a microlens m) and an optiwith a surface-emitting LED ( cal ber. Fig. 3(a) and (b) shows a schematic structure and photograph of the fabricated lensed LED. The diameter of the p-ohmic contact window is 40 m and the wafer thickness m, radius is 100 m. The circular pedestal (height m) is formed by the photoresist image reversal process

(c) Fig. 3. (a) Schematic structure of the SE-LED [(c = 1:55 m]. (b) The photograph of the fabricated SE-LED. (c) The photograph of the fabricated microlensed optical ber (MMF).

[Fig. 1(d)]. From the near-eld intensity pattern of the surfaceemitting LED, we concluded that the magnication of the microlens was 1.5. Also, the output power of the lensed LED increased 1.6 times because of enhanced directivity. From the photograph of the new microlensed ber in Fig. 3(c), we can see that the microlens has a good hemispheric shape ( m). Because the shape of the optical ber end is the same as in Fig. 1(a), the pedestal is not needed. Using these optical components, we measured the coupling efciency between the SE-LED and on MMF (core diameter

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devices. The microlens radius is easily controlled by varying the radius of the pedestal and the quantity of injected liquid material. Also, the distance between the lens and the substrate can be controlled. To show the application of the microlens, we made a microlensed SE-LED and a hemispheric lensed ber. The fabricated LED shows the output power increased to 1.6 times and the coupling efciency ratio is 1.5 and , are coupling efciencies of lensed and at where surface-emitting LEDs, respectively. Compared with typical arc-lensed ber and at-end ber, the coupling efciency of the new proposed microlensed ber is improved by 18% and 40%, respectively. We believe that this microlens can have wide applications for optical devices.
Fig. 4. Coupling results between SE-LEDs (with and without microlens) and optical bers (at end, typical arc-lensed and new proposed lensed).

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank J. S. Park for AFM and SEM measurements. REFERENCES
[1] P. Heremans, J. Genoe, M. Kuijk, R. Vounckx, and G. Borgh, Mushroom microlenses: Optimized microlenses by reow of multiple layers of photoresist, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 9, pp. 13671369, Oct. 1997. [2] M. C. Wu, L. Fan, and S.-S. Lee, Optical MEMS: Huge possibilities for lilliputian-sized devices, Optics Photon. News., vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 2529, 1998. [3] S. Tang, T. Li, F. Li, C. Zhou, and R. T. Chen, A holographic waveguide microlens array for surface-normal optical interconnects, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 8, pp. 14981500, Nov. 1996. [4] C. R. King, L. Y. Lin, and M. C. Wu, Out-of-plane refractive microlens fabricated by surface micromachining, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 8, pp. 13491351, Oct. 1996. [5] O. Wada, S. Y. Abe, Y. Nishitani, and T. Sakurai, High radiance InGaAsP/InP lensed LEDs for optical communication systems at 1.21.3 m, IEEE J. Quantum Electron., vol. QE-17, pp. 174178, Feb. 1981. [6] M. Hutley, R. Stevens, and D. Daly, Microlens arrays, Phys. World, vol. 4, no. 7, p. 27, July 1991. [7] O. Hasegawa, R. Namazu, M. Abe, and Y. Toyama, Coupling of spherical-surfaced LED and spherical-ended ber, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 51, pp. 3036, Jan. 1980.

m, graded index type). Fig. 4 represents coupling results between SE-LEDs (with and without microlens) and three kinds of bers [normal at end, typical arc-lensed ( m), and new lensed ( m)]. The ber coupling efciency of the lensed LED is increased by approximately 1.5 times for three kinds of optical bers. This result of increased coupling efciency agrees well with the calculated result [7]. Also the new microlensed ber shows the highest coupling efciency among the three kinds of bers. Compared with the typical arc-lensed ber and the at-end ber, the coupling efciency of the new microlensed ber is improved to roughly 18% and 40%, respectively. IV. CONCLUSION In this letter, we developed a new microlens fabrication process using UV curing method. Because the fabrication process is very simple, it is very easy to integrate with optical