EV Group Partners with SCHOTT on Lithography

EV Group (EVG) has partnered with SCHOTT to demonstrate the readiness of 300-mm nanoimprint lithography (NIL) for high-volume patterning of high-refractive index glass wafers used in the manufacture of waveguides/light guides for next-generation augmented/mixed reality headsets.

The partnership combines EVG’s proprietary SmartNIL process and SCHOTT RealView high-refractive index glass wafers, and will be carried out in EVG’s Austrian facility. SCHOTT will showcase the technology at the China International Optoelectronic Expo (CIOE), to be held Sept. 4-7.

The use of NIL to pattern glass substrates with structures for photonics applications has been limited to 200-mm substrates. This past June, EVG introduced the HERCULES NIL 300mm, which brings SmartNIL into 300-mm manufacturing to support production needs for a variety of devices and applications, including optical devices for AR, MR, and virtual reality headsets, as well as 3D sensors, biomedical devices, nanophotonics, and plasmonics.

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Published: August 2019

Glossary

lithography: Lithography is a key process used in microfabrication and semiconductor manufacturing to create intricate patterns on the surface of substrates, typically silicon wafers. It involves the transfer of a desired pattern onto a photosensitive material called a resist, which is coated onto the substrate. The resist is then selectively exposed to light or other radiation using a mask or reticle that contains the pattern of interest. The lithography process can be broadly categorized into several...
nanoimprint lithography: Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a nanolithography technique used for fabricating nanoscale patterns on a substrate. It is a high-resolution, high-throughput process that involves the mechanical deformation of a resist material on a substrate to create the desired nanostructures. The process is similar to traditional embossing, where a mold or template is pressed into a material to replicate a pattern. Here are the key elements and steps involved in nanoimprint lithography: Template/mold...
glass: A noncrystalline, inorganic mixture of various metallic oxides fused by heating with glassifiers such as silica, or boric or phosphoric oxides. Common window or bottle glass is a mixture of soda, lime and sand, melted and cast, rolled or blown to shape. Most glasses are transparent in the visible spectrum and up to about 2.5 µm in the infrared, but some are opaque such as natural obsidian; these are, nevertheless, useful as mirror blanks. Traces of some elements such as cobalt, copper and...
augmented reality: Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that integrates digital information, typically in the form of computer-generated graphics, images, or data, with the real-world environment in real-time. AR enhances the user's perception of the physical world by overlaying or combining digital content onto the user's view of the real world, often through devices like smartphones, tablets, smart glasses, or specialized AR headsets. Key features and principles of augmented reality: Real-time...

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