Wet-etching-assisted femtosecond laser holographic processing of a sapphire concave microlens array

We report rapid and mask-free fabrication of a sapphire concave microlens array by a combined method of femtosecond laser holographic processing and wet etching. The method features high fabrication efficiency, as crater arrays can be created on sapphire through a parallel processing manner, and the subsequent wet etching facilitates the formation of microlens arrays with a smooth surface. More importantly, the size and spacing of the concave microlenses can be well tuned by varying the distance of craters and etching time. Two types of microlens arrays with a spacing of 25 and 40 μm have been successfully fabricated, both of which showed good imaging performance. This method holds great promise for developing sapphire-based micro-optical components.