Saliha Ouendi won first prize in the Raith Micrograph Award 2024 competition for the Lithography Division. This award recognises the best SEM images of lithographic achievements made using equipment from the German company Raith, in this case an EBPG5000Plus nanomasker.

Traditional optical systems require several thick lenses to correct chromatic aberration, which increases the size, weight and complexity of devices such as cameras, microscopes and telescopes. Achromatic meta-lenses replace these complex stacks with a single thin layer, paving the way for more compact and lighter optical systems.

For a metamaterial lens to be achromatic, it is essential that each meta-atom, the fundamental building block, exhibits a specific variation in its optical response across the entire bandwidth.

The resulting meta-lens, with a diameter of 1 mm, is designed to focus light in the mid-infrared at a distance of 5 mm. It consists of more than 50 types of meta-atoms, each defined with a precise geometry of 3 microns, in order to optimise the achromatic behaviour of the whole.

The award-winning SEM image shows meta-atoms etched into silicon to a depth of 3.5 microns, an operation carried out by Marc Faucher (IEMN) using plasma processes developed for NEMS structuring. The design of this metamaterial lens was developed by Adelin Patoux (CRHEA). The lithography steps, based on the use of HSQ resin, were carried out by the Lithography Division.

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https://raith.com/company/micrograph-award/winner-applications/

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Contact :

lithoiemn.fr