Multi-direction digital moving mask method for fabricating continuous microstructures

The multi-direction digital moving mask method, employing the superposition of the exposure along various moving directions, is developed for fabricating continuous microstructures. The mask pattern corresponding to each moving direction is determined by projecting the target dose profile in the corresponding moving direction. All the mask patterns are dynamically exposed on the same substrate layer by layer so as to form a 3D profile of the exposure dose. The selection criterion of a quantization number and moving-direction number is discussed. For verification of the multi-direction moving method, experiments are performed to fabricate a square pyramid array and square-based microlens array by moving along two orthogonal directions, and round-based microlens array by moving along six directions.