Open Access
19 November 2019 Design, simulation, and fabrication of three-dimensional microsystem components using grayscale photolithography
Melissa A. Smith, Shaun Berry, Lalitha Parameswaran, Christopher Holtsberg, Noah Siegel, Ronald Lockwood, Michael P. Chrisp, Daniel Freeman, Mordechai Rothschild
Author Affiliations +
Funded by: United States Air Force, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory Biomedical Line Program for the United States Air Force, Air Force, Defense Threat Reduction Agency under Air Force, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering under Air Force Contract, Defense Threat Reduction Agency under Air Force contract, U.S. Air Force, NASA Earth Science and Technology Office Instrument Incubator Program, National Institute of Health (NIH)
Abstract

Grayscale lithography is a widely known but underutilized microfabrication technique for creating three-dimensional (3-D) microstructures in photoresist. One of the hurdles for its widespread use is that developing the grayscale photolithography masks can be time-consuming and costly since it often requires an iterative process, especially for complex geometries. We discuss the use of PROLITH, a lithography simulation tool, to predict 3-D photoresist profiles from grayscale mask designs. Several examples of optical microsystems and microelectromechanical systems where PROLITH was used to validate the mask design prior to implementation in the microfabrication process are presented. In all examples, PROLITH was able to accurately and quantitatively predict resist profiles, which reduced both design time and the number of trial photomasks, effectively reducing the cost of component fabrication.

CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
Melissa A. Smith, Shaun Berry, Lalitha Parameswaran, Christopher Holtsberg, Noah Siegel, Ronald Lockwood, Michael P. Chrisp, Daniel Freeman, and Mordechai Rothschild "Design, simulation, and fabrication of three-dimensional microsystem components using grayscale photolithography," Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS 18(4), 043507 (19 November 2019). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JMM.18.4.043507
Received: 19 August 2019; Accepted: 18 October 2019; Published: 19 November 2019
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CITATIONS
Cited by 27 scholarly publications and 2 patents.
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KEYWORDS
Photomasks

Optical lithography

Etching

Microsystems

Grayscale lithography

Device simulation

Photoresist processing

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