Replication of micro-optical elements with continuous relief by ultraviolet embossing with thiol-ene-based resist

We propose in this paper to use the delayed gel point character of thiol-ene-based resist to reduce the influence of polymerization shrinkage during the replication of micro-optical elements with continuous relief by UV embossing. Experiment results indicate that this resist can be used to bring down the fabrication error to less than 2% in the vertical direction at a proper thickness of the residual resist, which is far less than that of traditional acrylate-based resist. This resist can also be used to transfer continuous relief into a fused silica substrate through reactive ion etching because of its good etching resistance.