Optik 124 (2013) 867869

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Optik
journal homepage: www.elsevier.de/ijleo

A novel fabrication method for micro optical waveguide mold based on

y-cutting technology
Yulie Wu, Wenqiang Peng , Yong Liu
College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Hunan 410073, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: We present a novel fabrication method for micro optical waveguide mold based on y-cutting technology.
Received 7 October 2011 A micro polymer optical waveguide mold for molding process has been fabricated by ultra precision y-
Accepted 5 February 2012 cutting system. The mold, which has the trapezoidal cross-section with 65 m top width, 38 m bottom
width and 56 m height, has high depth-to-width ratio and high dimensional accuracy. The waveguide
pattern on the mold has the clear sharp edge and smooth sidewalls with nanometer root-mean-square
Keywords:
(rms) surface roughness. Prole testing results show that the dimensional errors of the mold are certied
Waveguide mold
to be approximately 1 m. Injection molding replication experiment shows that the mold is suitable for
Fly-cutting
Injection molding
the polymer optical waveguide for its simple process and ne surface prole.
Polymer waveguide 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction waveguide mold because it can offer a ne surface prole of the

Polymer optical waveguide has drawn much attention in opti-
cal interconnection, electrical optical printed circuit board (EOPCB)
due to its excellent optical properties, low cost-effectiveness, ease
of fabrication and structural exibility [13]. There are various
fabrication methods for polymer optical waveguide, such as reac-
tion icon etching, lithograph technique, photo-bleaching, direct
laser writing upon the photo-polymer and molding process [47].
Among these methods, the molding process is one of the promising
methods because it is amenable to mass-production, insensitive to
polymer selection, and low-cost [8]. Molding process was classi-
ed into metal molding process and rubber molding process by the
mold material. The metal mold has good stability in high temper-
ature and humidity environment. The metal mold is mainly made
by electroplating on a reverse mold, which is neither simple nor
cost-effective for its complex process [9]. The fabrication of high
quality optical microstructure based on ultra-precision machining
technology has been proved a method with high precision, qual-
ity and short fabrication time [10,11]. The technique for polymer
optical waveguide fabrication with ultra-precision machining is a
newly developed method right now. However the study about to
the micro optical waveguide mold is very limited.
In this letter, we present a polymer optical waveguide mold
fabricated by diamond y-cutting technique. Diamond y-cutting
technique is an attractive method for manufacturing an optical
core structure with high accuracy and a simple process [11,12]. Fur-
thermore, a large area replicated mold with high depth-to-width
ratio can be fabricated by the y-cutting technique.
2. Mold fabrication
As an important technology for the optical microstructure
manufacture, diamond ultra-precision machining has obvious
predominance compared with the traditional optical manufac-
ture methods [13]. Diamond y-cutting, which is a mechanical
ultra-precision process, can make more complex optical surface
especially linearity micro-grooves compared with other diamond
processes. Sub-micro and nano-level surface can be easily received
by the diamond y-cutting process. To the best of the authors
knowledge, this technology has not yet been applied to the mold
manufacture for polymer optical waveguides. Therefore, a y-
cutting method for waveguide mold fabrication is proposed. The
y-cutting system model is shown in Fig. 1. The model includes
a 3-DOF precision linear stage with sub-micro positioning accu-
racy and an ultra-precision air-bearing spindle with radial error of
0.1 m. The single point diamond tool is installed on the spindle.
In calculation, the sidewall roughness Ra of the micro optical
waveguide pattern cut by y-cutting process can be expressed as
  
 f 2
Ra = 0.25 sin R R2 (1)
2

Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 731 84574938; fax: +86 731 84574938. where R is the y-cutting slew radius, f is the feed rate and is the
E-mail address: plxhaz@126.com (W. Peng). rake angle shown in Fig. 2a.

0030-4026/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijleo.2012.02.020
868 Y. Wu et al. / Optik 124 (2013) 867869
Fig. 1. Schematic structure of the y-cutting system model with 3-DOF precision
linear stage.
The y-cutting tool has direct inuence on the waveguide
microstructure surface quality and the dimension accuracy. So, rst
the diamond tool was prepared. According to the designed trape-
zoidal optical waveguide, the tool nose structure, which had one
front face and three back faces with rake angle of 0 and back angle
of 6 , and with tool edge radius of 1 m was designed is shown in
Fig. 2. We chose the single diamond for tools material.
Three dimensional single diamond y-cutting system was
established based on nano-position ultra-precision machining
upon the model shown in Fig. 1. The y-cutting system was shown
in Fig. 3. The cut depth, spindle speed and feed rate were accurately
controlled by the system.
Then a nish turning nicke base for the waveguide mold was
prepared. The surface roughness of the mold base was 4.31 nm
measured by white-light interferometer. The single diamond tool
passed through the same path repeatedly until it reached the
desired depth. With y-cutting slew radius of 55 mm, spindle speed
Fig. 2. (a) The tip of diamond tool used in micro-mould fabrication and (b) the
diamond tool.
Fig. 3. Three dimensional single diamond y-cutting system.
of 1000 r/min, feed rate of 20 mm/min and cut depth of 25 m,
25 m and 6 m per tool path separately, we get the waveguide
pattern, which has the trapezoidal cross-section with 65 m top
width, 38 m bottom width and 50 m height, on the nicke mold
with clear sharp edge and smooth sidewalls.
Fig. 4 showed the raised waveguide pattern on the nicke mold.
The raised waveguide pattern on y-cutting mold was observed in
lens 500 by the digital light microscope as shown in Fig. 4. We can
observe the obviously uniform and glabrous waveguide pattern on
it. The pattern was uniform and size differences were about 1 m.
The surface roughness and the cross-section prole measured by
Form Talysurf PGI 1240 were shown in Fig. 5. The root mean square
roughness of the top facet was 4.31 nm and two sidewalls were
12.57 and 11.61 nm. Table 1 shows the size differences and sidewall
roughness.
Fig. 4. The raised waveguide pattern on the mold.
Fig. 5. The cross-section prole measurement by Talysurf.
 Y. Wu et al. / Optik 124 (2013) 867869 869

Table 1 melt temperature 280 C, mold temperature 75 C, injection speed

Waveguide pattern sizes and sidewall roughness measured by Talysurf.
220 mm/s and holding pressure 105 MPa. Fig. 6b shows the cross-
Top-facet/height Sidewall/bottom-width Sidewall/top-width sectional view of the fabricated waveguide. The core of the
Roughness 4.31 nm 12.57 nm 11.61 nm waveguide was obvious trapezoidal.
Size 57.1 m 68.9 m 36.5 m
Size error 1.1 m 0.9 m 1.5 m 4. Conclusion

We have developed a simple, short time consuming and low-

cost fabrication method of the polymer optical waveguide mold for
replication molding process. The surface roughness and size of the
fabricated pattern were measured. The root mean square roughness
of the top facet was 4.31 nm and two sidewalls were 12.57 nm and
11.61 nm. The size differences are approximately 1 m. A trape-
zoidal polymer waveguide was fabricated successfully with this
method. With low-cost fabrication, high dimension accuracy and
quality surfaces, y-cutting technique will become a proper and
promising method for mold fabrication of polymer waveguides.

Acknowledgment

The authors appreciate the nancial support by National Natural

Science Foundation of China under Contract 50735007.

References

Fig. 6. (a) Polymer waveguide injection molding fabrication process and (b) cross-
section of the waveguide.
3. Waveguide fabrication
The polymer waveguide replication process was realized by
the injection molding technology. The main injection molding
fabrication steps for the realization of the buried polymer opti-
cal waveguide were illustrated in Fig. 6a. The cladding and
core polymer materials used in the trapezoid waveguide were
PMMA with refractive index 1.48@1550 nm and ultraviolet adhe-
sive NOA61 with refractive index 1.54@1550 nm. The injection
molding processing parameters were set with cooling time 15 s,
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