Biomimetic microfabricated compound eyes

Over the past century, compound eyes in nature have been one of the most studied and intriguing topics in physiological optics due to their unique optical scheme for imaging. Hundreds to ten thousands of integrated optical units called ommatidia are spherically arranged along a curvilinear surface and point in different directions. Each ommatidium collects light within a small angular acceptance and collectively they construct a full image with a wide field-of-view. In this work, artificial compound eye lenses with three-dimensional configuration, which are anatomically and functionally similar to those in nature, have been synthesized using a photosensitive polymer resin by utilizing microlens technology, self-written waveguide process, and soft lithography.; Replicated honeycomb packed polymer microlenses as substitute for facet lenses in a natural compound eye was microfabricated with a photoresist melting process for microlens templates and a soft lithographic process for polymer replication. The microtemplate of photoresist microlens arrays (F/1 ∼ F/3, DL = 20 ∼ 50 mum) with low Fresnel number (NF < 10) and high packing density was replicated with different polymers such as UV curable epoxy resin, polydimethylsiloxane elastomer, and a negative tone photoresist.; Related to ommatidial optics, the diffraction of a low Fresnel number microlens, the light guiding of a waveguide, and the angular acceptance function of a microlens-waveguide system were theoretically studied with numerical analysis.; First, as a prototype microfabricated microlens-waveguide system ( DL = 300 mum), a small angular acceptance (rho A = 1.5°) comparable to that of natural ommatidia was experimentally achieved and compared with the numerical analysis. The system is based on self-written waveguides in a photosensitive polymer resin and replicated elastomer microlens arrays. However, due to the technical difficulties in handling the elastomer membrane with microlenses, it is limited in scaling down to the physical dimensions of natural ommatidium.; Second, as an advanced development, self-aligned microlens-waveguide systems comparable to the physical dimensions of natural ommatidia have been developed and integrated in a photosensitive resin. The individual microlens-waveguide systems of about 8,370 were spherically arranged along the circumference of a polymer dome of 2.5 mm in diameter and each points in different directions. The spherical configuration was realized using a replication process of reconfigurable microtemplates, i.e. the polymer replication using the deformed elastomer membrane with microlens patterns under small pressure (5 kPa ∼ 20 kPa). The characterizations of the small scale microlenses (F/1.8 ∼ F/2.9, DL = 25 mum) and waveguides were also carried out with a modified reflection/transmission confocal microscope. The comparative discussion between natural and artificial compound eyes is described and several future directions based on this work are also proposed.