Electrodispensing of Microspheroids for Lateral Refractive and Reective Photonic Elements

Volume 2, Number 6, December 2010

B. Born E. L. Landry J. F. Holzman

DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2010.2076800 1943-0655/$26.00 2010 IEEE

IEEE Photonics Journal

Electrodispensing of Microspheroids

Electrodispensing of Microspheroids for Lateral Refractive and Reflective Photonic Elements

B. Born, E. L. Landry, and J. F. Holzman
School of Engineering, University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus, Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7, Canada DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2010.2076800 1943-0655/$26.00 2010 IEEE

Manuscript received July 20, 2010; revised September 6, 2010; accepted September 7, 2010. Date of publication September 14, 2010; date of current version October 1, 2010. This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Corresponding author: J. F. Holzman (e-mail: jonathan.holzman@ubc.ca).

Abstract: An electrodispensing fabrication process is introduced in this work for the fabrication of microspheroid photonic elements. The fabrication process is suitable for in situ patterning of microdroplet spheroids whose optical responses can be tailored for use in onchip focusing or retroreflecting. Theoretical ray-based and wave-based analyses are used to characterize the optical responses of these microspheroid systems. Design-based details are extracted from these theoretical conclusions, and the electrodispensing fabrication process needed to pattern the structures is presented. Polymer microspheroids with diameters down to 150 m and contact angles up to 160 are fabricated, and the focusing/ retroreflecting characteristics of these structures are experimentally characterized. Index Terms: Photonic integrated circuits, light deflectors, optical device fabrication, optical refraction, optical reflection, optical polymers.

1. Introduction
The enhanced performance of light-based systems has allowed photonic devices to reach incredibly high processing speeds. Terabit/second rates have been demonstrated in such systems with multiplexed optical encoding [1], [2] and highly parallel photonic architectures [3]. At the core of these architectures are the fundamental requirements to accurately control the internal light propagation and manage the overall divergence [4]. Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) arrays [5], switching/ routing schemes [6], and interconnects/cross-connects [3], [6][8] have all been demonstrated for such on-chip purposes. These architectures employ a variety of refractive and reflective photonic elements, including waveguides [9], microlenses [10][13], micromirrors [14], diffraction gratings [15], and even photonic crystals [16]. Ultimately, these elements confine, direct, and mold the flow of internal optical beams. Of the numerous processing techniques available for on-chip photonic device fabrication, photolithographic processing has been particularly successful for achieving micrometer-scales with highly parallel and multichannel operation. Photolithographic processing by itself does not, however, allow for in situ reconfigurability or real-time control during or after the fabrication process. Structural modifications, adaptations, and tunability are therefore not possible for board-integrated microoptic systems [4]. To overcome these practical constraints, application-specific polymer processing with dispensing and in situ ultraviolet (UV) curing [17][19] has been developed. The employed polymer fabrication techniques provide an added level of processing configurability through (typically

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pressure-based) control of dispensed droplet volumes [19], [20]. The resulting polymer fluid structures demonstrate low levels of material absorption and surface scattering due to their high transparency and smooth liquid-surface-tension-defined interfaces. Polymer processing techniques, which have been commercialized, for example, by Hayes et al., have now evolved toward direct-write microjet printing technologies [19], [21]. These techniques have proven to be ideal solutions for arrayed microlens photonic applications [22], as the employed droplet dispensing/curing is suited to multilens constructions with vertical (i.e., perpendicular to the substrate) focusing above or through the substrate [21]. In contrast to this, on-chip interconnects and photonic cross-connects [23] operating in the lateral (i.e., parallel to the substrate) plane of the chip have had greater challenges for dispensing technologies. The majority of polymer-substrate interfaces demonstrate high wettability and especially low droplet contact angles (roughly 50 [19]). This on-chip lateral operational limitation has been alleviated to some degree by introducing prepatterned on-chip pedestals [21], although such a process sacrifices the aforementioned in situ reconfigurability, adaptability, and control offered by direct polymer dispensing for board-integrated optical systems (as photolithographic patterning is required for the pedestals). In this paper, the challenges of on-chip divergence management in the lateral plane of the substrate are addressed. An in situ fabrication process is introduced for the creation of microspheroid photonic elements. The fabrication process for these photonic elements provides two key processing control mechanisms: i) the creation of high contact angle microspheroid structures for lateral (i.e., horizontal) focusing with an on-chip direct-dispensing process and ii) in situ microspheroid shape tunability through a voltage-based direct electrodispensing process. This new fabrication technique is applicable to rapid prototyping as it overcomes many of the challenges in applying standard photolithography to complex optical alignments and architectures [24] (e.g., optical cross-connects, interconnects, backplanes, buses, and printed circuit boards). The two foremost practical challenges identified for complex optical systemsVpertaining to optical packaging constraints [25] and stringent alignment [26], [27] tolerancesVare alleviated by our in situ high contact angle polymer dispensing process and electrodispensing shape tunability, respectively. The presented work can ultimately be applied to planar optical relays [28], 3-D microlens systems [24], [29], and divergence-compensated microoptical implementations [4]. The first processing control mechanism overcomes the existing challenges of high capillary forces and low contact angles by dispensing polymer droplets within an ambient filler fluid [17]. The ambient filler fluid surrounds the droplets and increases the contact angles. The second processing control mechanism provides microspheroid shape tunability and is carried out through the introduction of a direct electrodispensing process. A voltage is applied during the dispensing process to tune in realtime the droplet contact angle at the three-phase contact line, eccentricity, and resulting shape. It is shown that microspheroid shapes can be electrically tuned from spherical-profile solid structures exhibiting lateral focusing to low-aspect-ratio elliptical-profile solid structures exhibiting lateral retroreflection. Numerous microspheroid droplets with diameters down to 150 m and contact angles up to 160 are patterned at required locations across the substrates. Theoretical analyses based on ray-tracing and finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) modeling are introduced in Section 2 of this paper to analyze the optical characteristics and design-based details of the microspheroids. The electrodispensing processing technique is then introduced in Section 3 for in situ fabrication of the microspheroids. Optical testing and experimental results are presented in Section 4, followed by the concluding remarks in Section 5.

2. Theory
The desire to vertically confine light within the lateral plane of a chip can be fundamentally met with a refractive structure demonstrating vertical convexity. This convexity can be achieved by way of a spheroid structure, with a refractive index n, that is formed as an ellipse-of-rotation with a vertical minor axis radius b and lateral major axis radius a. Light that is incident upon the spheroid undergoes refraction and focusing in the horizontal plane because of the biconvex nature of the 3-D form. The cylindrical symmetry of the spheroid allows this focusing to occur over full 360 horizontal

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Fig. 1. Ray-based analyses are shown for sideviews of n 1:5 spheroids having (a) a spherical profile defined by rmax b =a 1 and (b) an elliptical profile defined by rmin b =a 2=31=2 . Rays are incident from the left side of the figure. Focusing beyond the spheroid is exhibited in (a), while retroreflection is exhibited in (b). Top views for both these optical responses (not shown) display the lateral plane and are characterized by the spherical focusing response as seen in part (a).

rotations in the lateral plane, and the degree of light refraction in the spheroid is closely tied to the minor-to-major (i.e., vertical-to-lateral) aspect ratio r b =a of the structure. For the purposes of this investigation, the spheroid aspect ratios defined by r are restricted to values below a maximum of rmax 1. This maximum defines a sphere with a b . Such a structure is well-suited to typical on-chip applications which employ ball lenses [30] for tight focusing into single mode fibers [31], [32]. The maximum aspect ratio rmax 1 leads to this optimal and non-astigmatic focusing condition, as the vertical and horizontal focal lengths are equal. When astigmatic beam correction is desired for collimation or coupling of edge-emitting laser diodes, the aspect ratio of the spheroid can be reduced below one to compensate for the preferential vertical divergence of the beam [13], [29], [33]. In defining the focal conditions for a spheroid structure, it becomes apparent that there also exists a minimum aspect ratio rmin for which the optical response transforms from focusing beyond the exit interface to reflecting off a single point at the back-edge of the exit interface. This back-edge reflection leads to optical retroreflection, as the incident light rays will retrace their paths back to the optical source. Such a response can be beneficial for fan-out [34] and ribbon coupling [35] applications requiring vertical confinement and lateral spreading in a back-reflecting context. (Note that this minimum aspect ratio is weakly correlated to the light ray vertical distance d above/below the optical axis (OA) because of spherical aberration, and therefore, rmin is defined here as the aspect ratio for retroreflection of paraxial light rays with small d values.) Ultimately, a complete optical characterization is desired for the lateral plane response of spheroids with aspect ratios at the minimum rmin (for retroreflection), at the maximum rmax 1 (for non-astigmatic focusing), and at all aspect ratios between these limits. Such an investigation is carried out in the following subsections through both ray-based and wave-based (FDTD) analyses.

2.1. Ray-Based Analysis

To gain an understanding of the spheroid optical response over the full aspect ratio range rmin r rmax , a ray-tracing model is applied to spheroid structures at the maximum and minimum limiting cases of this aspect ratio range. The first spheroid of interest is characterized by the maximum aspect ratio. The structure is a sphere with n 1:5, a b , and rmax 1. Its circular cross-sectional profile is shown in Fig. 1(a). The spheroid is illuminated by light rays with distances above/below the OA of d 0:1b ; 0:3b and 0:5b , and a generalized trend for focusing beyond the spheroid is observed for all the rays. The light rays refract at both the entrance and exit interfaces of the spheroid and then converge to points along the OA. The paraxial rays, being closest to the OA and represented by the d 0:1b rays, are seen to focus at 1:5a; 0. This paraxial focal point is in agreement with the focal point an =2n 1; 0 predicted by the paraxial thick lens formula [36].

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Note that light rays further from the OA focus at points closer to the spheroid, and this is a manifestation of spherical aberration. The second spheroid of interest is characterized by the minimum aspect ratio rmin . By definition, this structure will exhibit retroreflection for paraxial rays close to the OA, and the required geometry to accomplish this is found here via ray-tracing. The spheroid aspect ratio is varied while paraxial light rays are monitored for convergence at the back-edge point a; 0. The resulting structure with rmin 2=31=2 is shown in Fig. 1(b) with incident light rays at d 0:1b ; 0:3b ; and 0:5b . The paraxial light rays are characterized best by the d 0:1b rays and are seen to refract at the entrance interface and then converge and reflect on the exit interface at a; 0. These rays are subsequently re-collimated by the entrance interface for retroreflection back to the optical source. Note that this confinement/re-collimation occurs only in the vertical dimension; light rays are free to diverge in the horizontal dimension, which may be advantageous for applications requiring lateral spreading or beam fan-out [34], [37][39]. As witnessed earlier for non-paraxial rays far from the OA, the focal lengths over which the rays converge are seen to decrease due to spherical aberration. While the above analysis successfully demonstrated spheroid optical responses for the minimum rmin and maximum rmax aspect ratios and one specific refractive index n 1:5, a generalized analysis is desired for the full aspect ratio range rmin r rmax with an arbitrary refractive index n. Such an analysis is carried out here for a generalized elliptical-profile spheroid with a refractive index n in an ambient air environment with a refractive index of 1.0. The structure is illuminated with light rays that travel parallel to, and a distance d from, the OA. The rays will strike the spheroid at the entrance points x0 ; y0 defined by 0 y0 b and the relation ! r d2 x0 ; y0 a 1 2 ; d : (1) b These entrance points are shown as hollow circles for light rays with d 0:1b ; 0:3b ; and 0:5b in Fig. 1(a) and (b). The rays subsequently refract at the entrance interface and converge in the dielectric according to the interior slope q 2 n 2 1y 2 r 2 x y y0 n 2 r 4 x0 0 0 0 q m r : (2) 2 n 2 1y 2 y 2 r 2 x0 n 2 r 4 x0 0 0 The rays then strike the spheroids exit interface at the points defined by q 2 2 2mx y b 2 m 2 x my m 2 x0 m 2 x0 my0 2 m 2 r 2 y0 0 0 0 0 ; x1 ; y 1 2 2 m r

y0 m x0 x1 : (3) These exit points are displayed in Fig. 1(a) and (b) as hollow circles. Finally, the exiting light rays converge along the OA at the focal lengths q 2 2 nmr 2 x ny 2 nmr 2 x y 2 ny 3 r 2 x1 y1 1 m 2 r 4x1 y1 1 1 1 1 1 q f r x1 ; 0 y1 b (4) 2 2y 2 2 4 2 2 nr 2 x1 y1 nmr 4 x1 1 1 m r x1 y1 nmr x1 ny1 that are defined from the center of the spheroid and shown as solid circles in Fig. 1(a) and (b). In (4), the possibility of launching whispering gallery modes via total internal reflection is neglected for these low refractive index polymers.

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Fig. 2. Wave-based analyses are shown with FDTD simulations for sideviews of spheroids with (a) a spherical profile defined by rmax b =a 1 and (b) an elliptical profile defined by rmin b =a 2=31=2 . An incident electromagnetic laser pulse propagates from the left. Focusing beyond the spheroid is exhibited in (a) with poor collimation of the retroreflected beam. Retroreflection is exhibited in (b) with excellent collimation of the back-reflected beam. (Note that the wavelength chosen for the FDTD simulations is scaled up and extraneous reflections are removed for clarity.) Top views for both these optical responses (not shown) display the lateral plane and are characterized by the spherical focusing response as seen in part (a).

For the investigated n 1:5 refractive index, there is an observed dependence between the focal length f and off-axis distance d . This manifests itself as spherical aberration in the figures. Light rays entering the sphere that are a distance d a=2 from the OA, for example, deviate from the paraxial focus by $7%. To reduce this spherical aberration, one can operate with a refractive index above this nominal 1.5 value. (It is interesting to note that spheres with refractive indices of approximately 1.7 can initiate the unusual phenomenon of photonic nanojet formation [40].) Note that the onset of retroreflection for the paraxial regime in (1)(4) is defined as the conditions for which x1 ; y1 a; 0 in (3) and f rmin a in (4). A paraxial characteristic equation for 2 retroreflection can then be formed with the approximations x0 % a, y0 % d , and y0 % 0 by equating the corresponding interior slope y0 =x0 a % d =2a with the expression in (2). The result is 2 m rmin % n 1d =rmin na % d =2a. The resulting paraxial characteristic equation for retroreflection becomes
2 rmin

2n 1 : n

(5)

The extracted rmin value is the aspect ratio value at which retroreflection occurs for the specified refractive index n . It is interesting to note that the retroreflection characteristic equation in (5) has been successful in free-space photonic applications with high-refractive-index glass structures having n 2:0 [41]. In these cases, the required aspect ratio is unity, and the structure is a retroreflecting sphere. While this concept cannot be applied directly to polymer structures, as the refractive index is exceedingly high, (5) does present a solution for planar (i.e., on-chip) geometries. Given a spheroid with the relatively low refractive index of n 1:5 and vertical-to-horizontal aspect ratio of rmin 2n 1=n1=2 2=31=2 , as presented in Fig. 1(b), retroreflection can be achieved. This spheroid structure vertically confines the returned/retroreflected light within the lateral plane of the chip.

2.2. Wave-Based (FDTD) Analysis

The capabilities of on-chip spheroids were introduced in the previous section using ray-based analyses to show focusing and retroreflecting applications, although it should be mentioned that these responses do not appear independently. A typical spheroid will simultaneously exhibit focusing and retroreflection to varying degrees. This point is made more obvious through a wavebased analysis showing optical collimation and reflection at each of the constituent interfaces. Such an analysis is carried out here through FDTD modeling of Maxwells equations within spheroid structures. The results are shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b) for the circular-profile spheroid with rmax 1

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Fig. 3. Microspheroid (a) processing system and (b) optical test system are shown. The processing system uses a metal 30-gauge needle tip with a 160-m inner diameter to dispense, electrically tune, and, finally, cure, the NOA 68 UV-curable polymer. The optical test system monitors the back-reflected beam profile on a CCD array to observe focusing and retroreflection effects.

and the elliptical-profile spheroid with rmin 2=31=2 , respectively. The figures display overlapped snapshots of the incident, returning, and focusing phase-fronts of an incident optical pulse. Fig. 2(a) displays the response of a spheroid with optimal focusing and rmax 1, as incident phase-fronts are seen to refract at the entrance and exit interfaces then converge beyond the spheroid to flat phase-fronts with a minimized beamwaist. (Spherical aberration effects are also apparent, as non-paraxial rays focus closer to the spheroid and lengthen the depth of focus.) At the same time, phase-fronts reflecting off the exit interface form a back-reflected wave with high phasefront curvature. This highly diverging wave is labeled as the returning phase-fronts in the figure. For applications desiring well-collimated back-reflected beams, the spheroid in Fig. 2(b) with rmin 2=31=2 is advantageous. The FDTD results for this spheroid show a greatly improved level of retroreflection, as the incident phase-fronts refract at the entrance, reflect off a point on the OA at the back-edge, and re-collimate at the entrance interface. The returning phase-fronts retroreflect with a low level of phase-front curvature and a high level of confinement in the lateral plane. Such conditions are ideally suited to on-chip retroreflection applications. If increased power levels are desired in these reflecting applications, the retroreflected power can be improved beyond that of simple Fresnel reflection through the use of a metallized back surface.

3. Fabrication
The theoretical analyses in the previous section introduced the spheroid as a structure that is capable of focusing and retroreflecting in the lateral plane of a chip. Optical responses of the structures were seen to be intimately related to the overall spheroid form by way of the aspect ratio. With the above structural characteristics in mind, the following subsections introduce a process that is capable of polymer microspheroid fabrication over the desired range of aspect ratios. This is accomplished through two established fabrication goals: i) the enhancement/increase of contact angles for the required polymer-substrate systems (see Section 3.1) and ii) the introduction of contact angle tunability through an electrodispensing process (see Section 3.2). The fundamental fabrication process makes use of our polymer electrodispensing apparatus for pressure-based dispensing of UV-curable polymer droplets on a substrate [18]. The generalized configuration for electrodispensing is shown in Fig. 3(a) and described in detail within the following subsections.

3.1. Contact Angle Enhancement

A critical challenge for the creation of polymer microspheroids relates to the high level of wettability between polymers and the vast majority of substrates. On small scales, capillary forces

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Fig. 4. Contact angle enhancement is shown. Microdroplets are formed in filler solutions of (a) air, (b) water, and (c) glycerol. The droplets are dispensed and cured in-situ on glass substrates. The ideal microspheroid is formed from the glycerol processing case shown in (c).

dominate and the contact angle 0 is typically restricted to values well below 90 . This restriction is made evident by Youngs Equation [42] cos0 sf sl;0 lf (6)

where, for the typical surrounding air filler and glass substrate, the solid-filler surface tension sf 200 mJ/m2 dominates over the small solid-liquid surface tension sl;0 , and the low liquid-filler surface tension lf increases the magnitude of cos0 . The resulting positive numerator in (6) then restricts 0 to values below 90 . The challenges of polymer deposition are visually apparent in the photograph of Fig. 4(a). The UV-curable polymer Norland Optical Adhesive (NOA) 68 is dispensed, using the pressure-controlled dispensing apparatus in Fig. 3(a), and UV-cured on the glass substrate in an air ambient environment using a 254-nm Spectroline optical source. Dispensing is carried out in a slow quasi-static process to enhance the reproducibility and minimize hysteresis effects for droplet formation. The microspheroid is removed from the dispensing setup after curing, and a low contact angle polymer lens with 0 37 is observed. Such a structure is suited to vertical focusing, as focusing can be easily achieved above or below the substrate plane, but its application to lateral focusing/retroreflection is impossible, as the droplet does not exhibit the vertical biconvexity of the spheroid form. To introduce the required biconvexity, the fabrication process is modified to include the use of a liquid ambient filler solution. The filler solution replaces the surface tension characteristics of air in (6), and the resulting decreased solid-filler surface tension leads to a large and negative numerator. This, in turn, produces a high contact angle droplet that can be UV-cured in the desired microspheroid form. Such a procedure is carried out with a deionized water filler solution, and the result is shown in the photograph of Fig. 4(b). The increased contact angle of the polymer structure is readily apparent, as a microspheroid structure with a contact angle of 0 140 is produced. The balanced three-phase contact line now produces the desired spheroid form. It should also be noted in this figure, however, that the choice of filler solution is important for reasons beyond capillary effects, as structures produced with the deionized water filler solution are found to exhibit varying levels of cloudiness. This reduced transparency is evident in Fig. 4(b) and is attributed to osmotic absorption at the polymer-filler interface. To prevent the aforementioned filler absorption, microspheroid fabrication is carried out next with a largely inert filler solution. Polymer droplets are dispensed within a glycerol solution having a purity above 99.7%. The choice of high purity glycerol minimizes water absorption, allows for UV/ optical transparency, and gives a comparable density to an NOA polymer. The results are shown in the photograph of Fig. 4(c). Notice in this case that the structure is characterized by an appreciable contact angle 0 150 , with little or no observable cloudiness. Using this final glycerol-filler processing technique, an assortment of microspheroids with diameters down to 150 m and contact angles up to 160 are produced. The lower diameter limit witnessed here is defined mainly by the 160 m dispensing tip inner diameter; thus, narrower tips can be used to create smaller microspheroids. There exists few constraints for the microspheroid

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Fig. 5. Contact angle tunability is shown through a variation of the electric field at the three-phase contact line of the microspheroids. The microspheroid eccentricity increases and the aspect ratio decreases as the applied voltage is increased according to (a) 200 V, (b) 600 V, and (c) 1000 V. The final form in (c) undergoes UV-curing.

diameters in terms of an upper limit (beyond those of on-chip size and practicality). Ultimately, the presented structures provide the required spheroid form, although a mechanism for tailoring the aspect ratios for in situ and specific focusing/retroreflection applications is still desired. This aspect ratio tunability process is addressed in the following subsection.

3.2. Contact Angle Tunability

To achieve the required aspect ratio tunability for the microspheroid, a control mechanism is introduced by way of an externally applied voltage V [18]. The voltage modifies the solid-liquid surface tension by way of electrowetting and the Lippmann Law [42] sl V sl ;0 CV 2 : 2 (7)

This voltage-dependent solid-liquid surface tension is then applied to the three-phase contact line, through a balancing of forces in (6), to form the LippmannYoung Law [42] cosV cos0 CV 2 2 lf (8)

which describes the relationship between the voltage-activated contact angle V and the nominal (zero-voltage) contact angle 0 . This final form is the product of an energy-minimization process, for which the stored electric field energy is quantified by the capacitance per unit area C . Equation (8) suggests that a voltage drop across a microspheroid will result in a reduction of its contact angle. This concept is directly applied through our electrodispensing apparatus shown in Fig. 3(a). Droplets are dispensed with the metal needle tip, and a voltage is subsequently applied to this needle to tune the shape of the dispensed microspheroid. This process is carried out in realtime while the droplet profile is monitored, and the desired microspheroid profile is captured (i.e., solidified) by the direct application of a UV beam. The prescribed electrodispensing process is shown in Fig. 5(a)(c): Fig. 5(a) shows the dispensed microspheroid with 200 V applied to the needle; Fig. 5(b) shows the dispensed microspheroid with 600 V applied to the needle; Fig. 5(c) shows the dispensed microspheroid with 1000 V applied to the needle. The ellipticity of the microspheroid is seen to change dramatically as these voltages are applied. The application of the electrodispensing voltages draws the droplet down toward the substrate as the polymer-substrate wettability is enhanced by the applied voltage. This modifies the microspheroid aspect ratio. (While there exists a possibility for electrolysis between the metal dispensing tip and a conducting substrate, such electrolysis processes can be avoided through the use of high purity and insulating filler solutions and/or insulating substrates.) It is interesting to note that the idealized concept of electrowetting, which would typically decrease the contact angle as the wettability is increased, is not observed in Fig. 5(a)(c). The three-phase contact line is seen to be pinned on the substrate due to hysteresis and high contact

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Fig. 6. Back-reflected beam profiles are shown for microspheroids with (a) a spherical r b =a % 0:98 aspect ratio with a focal length of 220 m and (b) an elliptical r b =a % 0:85 aspect ratio with a lateral divergence angle of 7 0:5 . The microspheroid focusing in (a) leads to a non-astigmatic focal spot and highly symmetric back-reflected beam profile. The microspheroid retroreflection in (b) leads to the desired vertical collimation and horizontal divergence in the back-reflected beam profile (as the structure closely approximates the ideal retroreflection aspect ratio of r b =a % 0:84 for NOA 68 with n 1:54).

line friction [43]. This manifests itself as an increase in the contact angle and an increase in the overall microspheroid ellipticity. For the tasks at hand, requiring a voltage-dependent electrical control mechanism, this process can be used effectively, with an adequate control and monitoring system, to tune the microspheroid profile and obtain the required aspect ratio for focusing or retroreflection.

4. Testing
To test the optical response of the microspheroids, the introduced electrodispensing fabrication process is employed for the fabrication of numerous on-chip microspheroids. The NOA 68 polymer microspheroids (with a refractive index of n 1:54) are dispensed onto a glass substrate and tested in an air ambient environment subsequent to curing. The optical responses for two microspheroids, with the minimum and maximum aspect ratios of interest, are presented in this section. The microspheroid structures are tested with the back-reflection monitoring system shown in Fig. 3(b), and the operation of this setup is tailored for monitoring of either microspheroid focusing or retroreflection. For focusing applications, a mirror is positioned beyond the microspheroid. When the mirror is moved to the focal plane of the microspheroid, the incident laser beam will reflect and re-collimate for its return toward the optical source. The profile of the back-reflected optical beam is sampled by a beamsplitter and CCD array to monitor the horizontal versus vertical focusing characteristics (i.e., the astigmatism) of the microspheroid focusing. An ideal spherical microspheroid will, for example, produce identical horizontal and vertical focal lengths and a circular back-reflected beam profile. The same process is carried out for monitoring the retroreflection characteristics, though such a process is accomplished without the back-reflecting mirror. Note that for these retroreflecting cases, the beam will reflect off the back-edge of the microspheroid and will be re-collimated in the vertical direction only. Broadening in the horizontal plane will be allowed for lateral applications [6]. Microspheroids with a variety of diameters, contact angles, and aspect ratios are tested, and two representative examples for the maximum and minimum aspect ratios are shown in Fig. 6(a) and (b), respectively. The microspheroid in Fig. 6(a) is spherical in form and has a diameter of 700 m, a contact angle of 150 , and a near-unity aspect ratio of r % 0:98. Note that all experimental aspect ratios quoted here are extracted from a high-resolution camera/microscope [44] and curve-fit using the Canny Edge Detection algorithm with ellipses centered in the paraxial regions of the microspheroids. These ratios may not correspond to the visually apparent ellipse profiles displayed in the photographs. The back-reflected beam profile of this microspheroid is shown in the figure inset. The

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back-reflected beam is found to be well collimated with comparable levels of horizontal and vertical divergence in the beam profile. The microspheroid in Fig. 6(b) is elliptical in profile with a horizontal diameter of 770 m, a contact angle of 160 , and an aspect ratio of r % 0:85. This aspect ratio approaches the ideal ratio of r 2n 1=n1=2 % 0:84 for NOA with n 1:54. Notice in this case, that the back-reflected beam profile in the inset shows vertical confinement/collimation with lateral beam divergence. Clearly, such structures can be employed for on-chip retroreflection applications requiring vertical confinement in the lateral plane of the chip.

5. Conclusion
Within this work, a new electrodispensing fabrication process was introduced. The process was capable of in situ fabrication of microspheroids whose optical responses could be tailored for use in focusing or retroreflecting applications. Theoretical ray-based and wave-based analyses characterized the optical responses of these systems, and conclusions were gained on the optimal attributes for the required focusing/retroreflecting effects. The fabrication process and its voltagedependent contact angle control were introduced, and a variety of polymer microspheroids with diameters down to 150 m and contact angles up to 160 were generated. This lower limit was set mainly by the 160-m dispensing tip size; thus, microspheroids with higher packing densities (closer channel spacings) and tighter focusing (closer transmitter-receiver distances) can be achieved, when needed, through the use of even smaller tip sizes. Through profilometry and optical testing of the microspheroids, it was found that the aspect ratios can be modified for a range of onchip photonic operations. Ultimately, the fabrication technique and resulting optical elements have potential for use in future integrated photonic circuitry, optical bio-sensors, and even 3-D Smart Dust optical sensing technologies.

Acknowledgment
The authors wish to thank A. Ahmadi and K. D. Devlin for insight into thermofluidics and microdroplet analysis.

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