| Aug 23, 2024 |
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(Nanowerk Information) Researchers at Worldwide Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), in collaboration with Bosch Automotive Multimedia and Bosch Safety Methods, not too long ago printed an article in Pc Physics Communications (“pyMOE: Masks design and modeling for micro optical parts and flat optics”), the place they introduce a brand new open-source Python software program that democratises the design and modelling of micro optical parts and flat optics.
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Micro optics can substitute cumbersome conventional optics with glossy, micro and nanostructured alternate options, enabling extra superior optical capabilities. These parts, produced with semiconductor microfabrication methods, require exact binary or multilevel lithography masks to translate computed designs into bodily parts. Nonetheless, no current device affords a whole answer for designing, simulating, and producing these masks – till now.
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INL researchers developed an open-source software program bundle to fill this hole, by offering an end-to-end answer that enables customers to design, simulate, and generate lithography masks for micro optical parts.
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João Cunha, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at INL, explains “with this new improvement it’s potential to create masks straight out of your desired optical capabilities, and export them as binary or multilevel lithography information (resembling GDSII and DXF) appropriate with customary microfabrication instruments.”
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“This bundle addressed the problem of manufacturing floor reduction diffractive optics by discretisation of steady topographies into masks layers, required for particular micro and nanofabrication approaches, resembling grayscale lithography processes we applied at INL. It turned out extra researchers had been dealing with the same problem, and so we’ve got created an open-source software program device obtainable to everybody which we might have appreciated to have obtainable when initially tackled this drawback”, João concludes.
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“The software program bundle already consists of mills for widespread optical parts like Fresnel lenses, or extra advanced ones resembling Alvarez lenses, in addition to instruments for creating hologram section masks for sample projection utilizing the Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm, all of which had been impressed by challenges confronted by our industrial companions. The bundle permits to go all approach from the design and validation of optical properties via simulation, to the technology of lithography-ready masks, vastly accelerating the event of latest advanced diffractive micro optics”, provides Diogo Aguiam, Workers Researcher at INL.
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However this new software program goes past simply design. It consists of superior simulation instruments, enabling correct simulation and validation of optical fields in each near- and far-field ranges, guaranteeing that designs carry out as anticipated in real-world situations. The developed software program at INL is a flexible and complete device that simplifies all the course of of making micro optical parts, from idea to manufacturing, making it invaluable for researchers and engineers within the discipline of micro optics.
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