Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G02—OPTICS
  • G02B—OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS OR APPARATUS
  • G02B26/00—Optical devices or arrangements for the control of light using movable or deformable optical elements
  • G02B26/08—Optical devices or arrangements for the control of light using movable or deformable optical elements for controlling the direction of light
  • G02B26/0875—Optical devices or arrangements for the control of light using movable or deformable optical elements for controlling the direction of light by means of one or more refracting elements
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G02—OPTICS
  • G02B—OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS OR APPARATUS
  • G02B3/00—Simple or compound lenses
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G02—OPTICS
  • G02B—OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS OR APPARATUS
  • G02B3/00—Simple or compound lenses
  • G02B3/12—Fluid-filled or evacuated lenses
  • G02B3/14—Fluid-filled or evacuated lenses of variable focal length
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G02—OPTICS
  • G02B—OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS OR APPARATUS
  • G02B13/00—Optical objectives specially designed for the purposes specified below
  • G02B13/001—Miniaturised objectives for electronic devices, e.g. portable telephones, webcams, PDAs, small digital cameras

Definitions

• the present invention is related to a method for manufacturing adjustable lenses, and especially to a method for manufacturing adjustable lenses on wafer technology.
• JP 02-178602 disclose a lens assembly wherein a couple of transparent base materials with a liquid in between provides a bending of the base materials by applying a voltage on piezo electric elements disposed on one of the base materials, wherein the bending provides a desired curvature of the surfaces of the lens assembly.
• JP 2000-249813 disclose a lens assembly comprising a deformable transparent material disposed in between two bendable transparent plates.
• a common actuator can bend the paltes to provide a shift of the focal length of the lens assembly.
• JP 01-140118 disclose an adjustable lens assembly comprising a piezo electric polymer with transparent electrodes on top of a cylinder container comprising a transparent liquid. Violtages applied onto the piezo electric plymer provides a curvature of the plymer, and hence a shift of focal length.
• the inventors of the present invention has also invented a design of an adjustable lens assembly as depicted in figure 1. It is an aspect of the present invention to provide a method for manufacturing lens assemblies as depicted in figure 1.
• a method for manufacturing a lens assembly comprising following constructional elements and constructional relationships, including all listed elements or any subset of elements, with or without other elements not disclosed, in the listed order of elements, or in any order of elements, at least one support supporting a gel or elastomer comprising a thin glass cover, wherein a circular shaped middle part of the thin glass cover is arranged as an island with no contact to the rest of the glass cover, floating on top of the gel, wherein a thin circular piezoelectric ring shaped crystal is disposed along the edge of the glass island, the rest of the glass cover is disposed on top of the gel until the edges of the at least one support, wherein distal elements along the edge of the at least one support provides electric connections for signals applied on the piezoelectric ring, and wherein the distal elements at the same time provides mechanical support and fixation of the glass cover to the at least one support, can be mass produced.
• the present invention is related to examples of methods for producing adjustable lenses in which a flexible, transparent material is sandwiched between two glass plates, in which one or both of the glass plates are shaped by the means of an actuator (for example a piezoelectric actuator).
• the flexible material is included in order to provide the bulk material of the lens, and could be for example provided for by polymer gels, elastomers, or linear or branched polymeric or oligomeric oils.
• processes for the production of adjustable lenses is provided for on wafer scale.
• the wafer scale adjustable lenses with a stack of other fixed or adjustable lenses is possible.
• Yet another aspect of the present invention is to facilitate the implementation of adjustable lenses with other optical systems on a wafer scale assembly, such as optical sensors (for the facilitation of wafer scale camera modules, for example).
• Figure 1 illustrates a design of an adjustable lens assembly.
• Figure 2 illustrates a perspective view of the design depicted in figure 1.
• Figure 3 depicts another example of adjustable lens.
• Figure 4 illustrates an array of lens assemblies on a wafer.
• Figure 5 illustrates another array of lens assemblies on a wafer.
• Figure 6 illustrates a lens assembly with partially removed polymer.
• Figure 7 illustrates another example of lens assembly.
• the present invention is related to manufacturing processes for adjustable lenses that comprises a flexible material (often a polymer gel, an elastomer or an oil) sandwiched between two more rigid materials (for example glass or harder polymer materials).
• a flexible material for example a polymer gel, an elastomer or an oil
• rigid materials for example glass or harder polymer materials.
• the actuator provides a force that distorts the shape of the rigid cover material.
• the distortion causes a slight shaping of the flexible material, giving a lens shape.
• the lens shaping will then change the focusing of light going through the lens.
• the adjustable lens can be used for example in auto focus or zoom lens applications.
• the present invention relates to processes for the manufacturing of lens assemblies that comprise (viewed from bottom and upwards) a support glass, spacer materials, a flexible material (a polymer), a cover glass with actuator (for example piezoelectric actuator) disk that "floats" on the flexible material. See figure 1 and 2 for a schematic illustration.
• the thickness of the flexible material and of the shapeable cover material are significant to the functionality of the tunable lens element.
• the actual optimal thickness will be a trade off between ease of handling, quality of lens surface curvature and low actuating forces.
• Examples of geometrical dimensions for a lens element with for example 1 mm aperture may be a cover glass thickness of 5-50 ⁇ m and polymer thickness of 0.1 to 2mm.
• the thickness of the support glass is not critical for the functioning of the lens assembly. However, mechanical stability is a design parameter. In an example of embodiment of the lens assembly the thickness is about 200 ⁇ m or more.
• the adjustable lens includes an actuator
• electrical signals must in be brought from a voltage supply/control unit onto the actuator element or elements, if the actuator comprises a plurality of individual actuator elements. This can be achieved by providing electrodes on the outside of each lens element after singulation, or electrodes can be integrated into each individual lens element. The latter is preferred, and could be inevitable if wafer scale integration of the adjustable lens element with other lens systems and/or image sensors is to be accomplished.
• driving electronics and/or control electronics for the actuator is provided on a part of the supporting substrate, hi this example of embodiment, signals may be provided by conducting elements related to the spacer elements bringing signals from the support and the electronics integrated into the support on to the cover glass providing a possibility to contacting the actuator element or actuator element comprised the glass island via bonding.
• Electrodes from the actuator on the floating island disk could be directed to the edges of the lens element by for example integrating them on the cover glass, creating electrode bridges to the shapeable disk island, or they could be prepared in a separate step sometime after the etching of the cover glass/actuator.
• Spacer elements for example glass beads, polymer beads, fibers, Solid elements made from metals (gold, silicon etc) are prepared onto the support substrate/glass by one of several possible techniques (gluing, lift-off, deposition, selective etching, growing etc.)
• a liquid pre-polymer is spin coated, sprayed, dispensed or similar onto the support glass with spacers.
• a continuous cover glass with pre-assembled actuators is then flip-chip assembled onto the support glass/spacer/polymer substrate, and bonded using one of several possible known bonding techniques (anodic, gluing etc.)
• the cover glass with actuators is masked and selectively etched, in order to form the "floating" active disk of the adjustable lens
• the individual elements are finally formed by sawing the whole wafer in a grid pattern such that parts of the spacer elements are left in the corner of the grid pattern after the sawing.
• an optional scheme to accomplish the effect of step 3 and 4 is by manufacturing the cover glass comprising a plurality of holes equivalent to the holes provided by the etching, and correspondingly providing pre manufactured glass disks comprising actuator elements, and then positioning the glass islands in the opening of the holes floating on top of the polymer.
• the advantages of this example of embodiment are: 1) the facilitation of easily available wafer scale processing steps, 2) a compact adjustable lens can be formed (the width of the lens element can be as small as 2-3 times the aperture diameter, 3) the lens element has good mechanical stability due to the presence of the fixed spacer elements.
• polycrystalline silicon is deposited onto a 300 ⁇ m thick support glass wafer.
• the polysilicon is polished down to the desired spacer thickness (for example 500 ⁇ m).
• a resist polymer is spin coated onto the polysilicon, and selectively UV-cured through a mask. Surplus resist is washed off, and the silicon is removed by for example dry etch techniques, in order to create the spacer elements.
• the cover glass with piezo actuators is assembled onto the spacer elements, and bonded or glued together. The final step before singulation is the etching of the cover glass, that creates the shapeable disks floating atop the flexible polymer film.
• Another example of embodiment of the present invention comprises steps as illustrated in method A, but comprise a step delaying the application of the polymer material to a moment after the cover glass has been mounted onto the support/spacer substrate.
• An advantage of the embodiment B is that the limited process temperatures that are associated with organic or inorganic polymers can be omitted by delaying the introduction of these materials into the lens element.
• Another advantage is that contamination of bonding surfaces by polymer is avoided, and the bonding step of the process can be greatly simplified.
• Another example of embodiment of the present invention comprises steps as illustrated in the examples A and B above, but forming the spacer elements on the cover glass substrate with actuator.
• the spacer elements should have some arrangement that is continuous or semi-continuous, in order to provide mechanical stability to the very thin cover glass.
• One elegant way of accomplishing this is to prepare the actuating piezo crystals onto a thin glass film bonded on a silicon wafer. Either before or after piezo deposition, the silicon on the back-side is masked according to a desired pattern, and etched by one of known techniques to form the spacer elements. This actuator/cover glass with spacer elements is then bonded to the support glass, and at any point in time the polymer material is introduced, as described in the examples A and B above.
• Embodiment D Embodiment D:
• Another example of embodiment of the present invention comprise method steps as illustrated in the examples A and B above, but comprise further spacer materials that are any conductive material.
• the actuator that creates the force on the top cover glass has to be connected to an external voltage supply and control system by electrodes.
• spacer materials that are conductive for example metals, silicon, conductive polymers, glues or composite materials
• through holes in the cover glass and either through holes or electrodes on the support glass an extremely compact adjustable lens is provided.
• the spacer elements comprise a plurality of conductors, and a plurality of contacting pads on top of the continuous cover glass through via holes.
• Another example of embodiment of the present invention comprise method steps as illustrated in the examples A, B or C, comprising further disposing an integrated protective cover glass, as shown schematically in Figure 3.
• Another example of embodiment comprise method steps wherein the polymer is formed such that the polymer do not cover the whole assembly, but instead the polymer is provided as individual elements for each lens element in the process.
• the polymer material can be manufactured in any prior art processes, such as printing, deposition, dispensing, spin coating or similar.
• the polymer elements can either be applied onto the cover glass containing the actuator elements or onto the support substrate.
• Embodiment H Another example of embodiment of the present invention comprise method steps where the polymer layer is partially removed, by for example by partial etching of the polymer before or after assembly of the cover glass element, creating a lens element structure as depicted in Figure 6.
• the advantages of this example of method according to the present invention is that the deformation of the actuator element can be eased, providing lower requirements for the drive voltages.
• Another example of embodiment of the present invention comprise steps as illustrated in D, but comprise further method steps providing the spacer material as a continuous wall. This facilitates the creation of a hermetically sealed compartment comprising the actuator element and the flexible material. This example of embodiment expands the range of applicable materials for the flexible element, as the flexible material can include gels or highly viscous polymers that contain liquids with a certain volatility.
• FIG. 7 is a schematic illustration.
• the advantage of this embodiment is the facilitation of available processes for creating through holes for electrical contacting, while maintaining good mechanical stability of the support glass although the thickness of the glass itself is low.
• driving electronics and control logic for activating and controlling the actuators may be provides as an integrated circuit deposited on to the silicon part of the substrate, or being an integral part of the silicon material, as known to a person skilled in the art.

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• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Optics & Photonics (AREA)
• Liquid Crystal (AREA)
• Lens Barrels (AREA)

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Citations (6)

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• 2007
  • 2007-10-05 WO PCT/NO2007/000351 patent/WO2008044938A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2007-10-05 US US12/445,274 patent/US8883019B2/en active Active
  • 2007-10-05 JP JP2009532318A patent/JP5255565B2/ja not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2007-10-05 KR KR1020097009478A patent/KR101360545B1/ko active Active
  • 2007-10-05 EP EP07834764.8A patent/EP2074445B1/en active Active
  • 2007-10-05 CN CN2007800376963A patent/CN101606086B/zh active Active

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