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Webinar
Slanted Etching of High RI Materials

9 September 2021 at 3PM (BST)


About the Webinar

Current polymer-based Augmented Reality (AR) glasses are reaching an upper threshold of field of view, due to their refractive index (RI). Current resins used have n ≤ 1.9 and it seems a significant hurdle to further improve this. Glass substrates and coatings are already easily available that have n > 2, such as ZrO2 and TiO2 and are therefore viable replacements for the current technologies.

Etching these materials in a binary or slanted waveguide requires the development of new processes and the use of more novel technologies. In this webinar, Dr William Frost will demonstrate that nanoimprint lithography based on resin with a thin sacrificial layer can be used as a mask for slanted etching of TiO2 waveguides, using reactive ion beam etching (RIBE). Furthermore, we demonstrate that this process can be transferred to other high RI materials, such as glasses. This work is based on the work performed in collaboration with EV Group1.

1) M. Eibelhuber et al, "Towards AR waveguides with refractive index 2.0 utilizing nanoimprint lithogrpahy," Proc. SPIE 11765, Optical Architectures for Displays and Sensing in Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality (AR, VR, MR) II, 117650H (29 March 2021); doi: 10.1117/12.2579505

Ion Beam Etched InP Lens SEMs
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Meet the Presenter

Dr William Frost

William Frost
Application Engineer, Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology

Dr William Frost graduated from University of York with a PhD on ‘Perpendicular Anisotropy in Heusler Alloy Thin Films for CPP-GMR Devices’, where he then continued materials research and as a lecturer. He joined Oxford Instruments in 2020 a Process Engineer working on etching of III-V materials, metals and oxides using techniques such as RIE, ICP and Ion Beam etching. Will has a wealth of experience related to the deposition, etch and analysis of a wide range of materials for many applications.

Applications Engineer with a demonstrated history of communicating complex technical ideas and scientific concepts to a varied audience in his past as a University Lecturer. Working at Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology a provider of a powerful range of systems supporting a wide variety of applications for etch and deposition. These include ALD, ALE, CVD, ICP, PECVD and RIE.

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