Generally, optical multilayer coatings are formed on the optical surface for the purpose of anti-reflection. However, these coatings have problems of environmental resistance such that cracks or peelings.
Lately, a technique for realizing an anti-reflection function by forming a sub-wavelength scale structure on the optical surface has been widely studied [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. Such a structure is called ARS, Anti-Reflective Structure. ARS has excellent environmental resistance compared to multilayer coatings and has the advantage of low dependence on the incidence angle in terms of optical characteristics.
We have studied a method for fabricating ARS using RIE, Reactive Ion Etching. We found that ARS with fine optical properties is formed on the surface of the glass lens by adjusting plasma condition at each etching process. In this report, we will introduce examples of applications to quartz glass. The first case is ARS for the visible light, which achieved a transmittance of 99% or higher. The other is ARS for the deep ultraviolet light. In addition, these ARS have characteristic of water repellency which is useful for optical components.
Generally, an optical lens is reduced its reflection by multilayer anti-reflection coating. However, there are some problems, for example, those coatings cannot be attached for some kind of resins, and show clack or peeling by temperature change or humidity. Lately, anti-reflection effect by sub-wavelength structure on optical lens surface is studied widely. This is called ARS, Anti-Reflective Structure. ARS solved above problems, and has low dependence on incident angle of light. Conventionally, for mass production of ARS lens, we tried injection molding. That is, fabricating fine structure on mold core, and transfer the structure to plastic resin. However, the transferring is very difficult, because of its fineness and adhesion resin to the core. Besides, mold for high transcription is expensive. We tried to fabricate ARS on plastic lens surface by Reactive Ion Etching. Controlling plasma condition at each etching process cleverly, we successfully obtained fine ARS on optical lens surface. The structure has high aspect and narrow pitch which is about 0.1μm, and show good anti-reflective property.
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