| With unique imaging characteristics, compound eyes of insects have attracted lots ofresearch interest in bionics. This paper mainly focuses on the study of fabrication method ofartificial compound eyes with similar profile and optical feature as the natural compoundeyes, aiming at the fabrication of compound eyes with small size, light weight, large field ofview (FOV) and high sensitivity to velocity.The fabrication scheme in this paper consists of two parts, structural design andfabrication. With the help of Zemax, the optical design software, the structure of the deviceis optimized. As the fabrication of the waveguide array is based on the self-focusing ofSU-8, programming in Matlab is employed to help simulate the forming process.The main work and outcoming in this paper is as follows:(1) The structure, imaging characteristics, related research work and application ofcurved artificial compound eyes are illustrated, to show the value of study on it.(2) The optical feature of SU-8photoresist is studied. It is found that the trend how itsrefractive index changes with the increase of exposure dose resemble that thenon-linear material with self-focusing effect, which proves potential of utilizing theself-focusing effect to fabricate the waveguide array.(3) With the software Zemax employed, the coupling of cured compound eyes and flatsensor array.(4) Finite-different Time-domain (FDTD) method, with Matlab used to program, isemployed to study the exposure process of SU-8. It is proved that the fabricationscheme of waveguide array based on self-focusing is applicable, which gives areference for the following fabrication process.(5) A complete fabrication scheme of curved bionic compound eyes is designed. Asample of artificial compound eye and a mode for curved microlens array are fabricated. The test result shows that the sample has fine good profile and thestructure resembles the natural compound eyes a lot. Besides, the ommatidia showfine optical property and can converge light well. |
