Metasurface Design Flow for Fabrication Artifacts
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Solution Overview
Problem
Designing metalenses and other optical metasurfaces for high-volume manufacturing is challenging due to discrepancies between nominal and actual geometries of fabricated nano-scale features, leading to deviations from the desired optical effects.
Innovation Solution
A manufacturing-aware design flow that utilizes a library of meta-atoms accounting for fabrication artifacts such as corner rounding and side-wall angle deviations, allowing for optimization and simulation based on actual geometries rather than idealized shapes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If idealized meta-atom geometries are used in design, then optical performance simulation is simplified, but fabrication accuracy deteriorates due to unaccounted manufacturing artifacts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-calculating and incorporating fabrication artifacts into the design process itself. Manufacturing-aware meta-atoms are generated in advance with built-in corrections for corner rounding and side-wall angles, so that when these artifacts are fabricated, they automatically match the intended optical performance without requiring post-fabrication adjustments or iterative redesign.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the geometric parameters of meta-atoms by introducing fabrication-artifact-aware variations in corner radii and side-wall angles. Instead of using idealized sharp corners and vertical walls, the design incorporates specific rounded corner radii and tilted side-wall angles that account for photolithographic and etching process characteristics, thereby bridging the gap between design intent and fabricated reality.
2Manufacturing precision
If manufacturing artifacts are accounted for in design, then fabrication accuracy improves, but design complexity increases due to need for artifact prediction and correction
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses copying by creating a library of pre-characterized manufacturing-aware meta-atoms that replicate actual fabricated geometries. These copies include realistic corner rounding and side-wall angle deviations, allowing the design system to work with accurate representations of what will be fabricated rather than requiring complex real-time artifact prediction algorithms during each design iteration.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-calculating and incorporating fabrication artifacts into the design process itself. Manufacturing-aware meta-atoms are generated in advance with built-in corrections for corner rounding and side-wall angles, so that when these artifacts are fabricated, they automatically match the intended optical performance without requiring post-fabrication adjustments or iterative redesign.
3Manufacturing precision
If multiple design iterations are performed to account for fabrication variations, then manufacturing precision improves, but development time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-calculating and incorporating fabrication artifacts into the design process itself. Manufacturing-aware meta-atoms are generated in advance with built-in corrections for corner rounding and side-wall angles, so that when these artifacts are fabricated, they automatically match the intended optical performance without requiring post-fabrication adjustments or iterative redesign.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback by using measured or simulated fabrication artifact data (corner radii, side-wall angles) to directly inform and adjust the design parameters of meta-atoms during the design process. This closed-loop approach ensures that the design accounts for actual manufacturing behavior, eliminating the need for time-consuming trial-and-error iterations.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes receiving a metasurface design including a plurality of meta-atoms arranged to modify phases of incident waves, the plurality of meta-atoms being from a library of different nominal meta-atoms; generating, by a processing device, a library of manufacturing-aware meta-atoms based on the library of different nominal meta-atoms; and generating instructions for fabricating a manufacturing-aware metasurface having layout computed using a cost function based on the metasurface design and the library of manufacturing-aware meta-atoms.