Myung-bok Lee

The fabrication of Co-Pt electro-deposited bit patterned media with nanoimprint lithography.

Bit patterned media with 25 nm hole diameter and 50 nm pitch size were fabricated with serial processes comprising master patterning with electron-beam lithography, a Si etching process, multi-layer soft stamp replication, and UV nanoimprinting, followed by Co-Pt magnetic material filling by electro-deposition. From these processes, the designed patterns were well defined, and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of the fabricated bit patterned media was obtained.

Design and fabrication of diffractive optical elements by use of gray-scale photolithography.

Diffractive optical elements (DOEs) are key components in the miniaturization of optical systems because of their planarity and extreme thinness. We demonstrate the fabrication of DOEs by use of gray-scale photolithography with a high-energy-beam sensitive glass photomask. We obtained DOE lenses with continuous phase profiles as small as 800 microm in diameter and 5.9 microm in the outermost grating pitch by selecting a suitable optical density for each height level and optimizing the process variables. Microlenses patterned with eight levels and replicated by UV embossing with the polymer master mold showed a diffraction efficiency of 81.5%, which was sufficiently high for the devices to be used as optical pickups. The effects of deviations in diffraction efficiency between the DOE height and profile design were analyzed.

Development of Microlens for High-Density Small-Form-Factor Optical Pickup

A microlens of numerical aperture (NA) 0.85 a small-form-factor optical pickup, following the specifications of the Blu-ray disc (BD), was designed, fabricated and evaluated. To avoid difficulties in the fabrication of a high-NA objective lens and to obtain a low chromatic aberration, a new hybrid lens unit was designed to have a refractive lens and a diffractive lens. The micro-plano-aspheric refractive lens was fabricated using glass molding technology, and the diffractive lens was fabricated in a two-dimensional array using the electron beam mastering and consecutive UV embossing process. For the evaluation of the developed lens unit, diffraction efficiency was measured with the proposed diffraction efficiency measurement method, and the wavefront error of the lens unit was evaluated using a modified Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The measured average efficiency of the diffractive lens was approximately 85% and the RMS wavefront error of the lens unit was 0.0376 λrms.

Super slim optical pickup for mobile storage device applications

This paper addresses the design, fabrication and packaging issues of SSOP(super slim optical pickup) module using blury technology. By using blu-ray technology, which uses a 407nm LD (Laser Diode) and an objective lens having NA (Numerical Aperture) 0.85, storage devices become miniaturized but have a high capacity. The developed prototype uses the integrated structure of a SiOB (Silicon Optical Bench) and a mirror substrate. The SiOB should be processed in order that a thin film PD(Photodiode) and interconnections, LD, Lens, QWP(Quarter Wave Plate) and HOE can be placed, and on the Silicon Substrate should Micromachined Silicon Mirror be formed. The SiOB is aligned and bonded with the wafer on which Silicon Mirror was formed. Then, it is diced. Because it is fabricated through this order, the super slim optical pickup can be fabricated by using wafer-level process. As a final step LD on the SiOB and HOE are mounted, assembled and bonded using an active alignment. The proposed SSOP was prototyped and characterized by measuring wavefront error and detecting static focusing and tracking error signals.

Diffraction limit of the focusing waveguide grating coupler for optical probe information storage

A focusing waveguide grating coupler (FWGC) has been applied to an optical information storage element. To achieve minimum diffraction, focusing and high-coupling efficiency with high power, several fabrication and design difficulties have to be overcome. In this work, we report some new strategies to improve the fabrication and design, and greatly improve the pattern quality in defining curved gratings in the nanometre range using single-step electron-beam lithography with a conventional exposure mode. We also present the optimum fabrication conditions for the FWGC and the minimum diffraction limit (1.1 µm) obtained for the structure, which is optically the smallest diffraction spot size obtainable from diffraction gratings focusing beams into a spot in air.

Fabrication and MFM study of 60 nm track-pitch discrete track media

Discrete track magnetic recording media with a 60 nm track pitch and prewritten servo patterns were fabricated and tested for read/write performance, and a feasibility analysis of the embedded servo was performed. The fabrication process consisted of ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) and sequential ion beam etching on a conventional perpendicular magnetic recording medium. Magnetic patterns were written to the fabricated tracks at 700 kilo flux changes per inch (kFCI) using a spin stand and were read using magnetic force microscopy (MFM), with a resulting signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 12.15 dB. The servo pattern was also visualized with MFM. These results demonstrated the feasibility of writing to a 30 nm wide discrete data track and the workability of the embedded servo pattern.

Fabrication of diffractive optical elements with grayscale photo-lithography

We have developed diffractive optical element (DOE) to compensate chromatic aberration happened in aspheric lens surfaces in micro optical system. The DOE was generated with grayscale lithography using high-energy-beam-sensitive (HEBS)-glass, and we finally get DOEs having 4levels and 8levels through this fabrication.