Surface Micro-Structuring of Silica Glass by Laser-induced Backside Wet Etching

We have investigated a one-step method to fabricate a microstructure on a silica glass plate by using laser-induced backside wet etching (LIBWE) that consists of excimer laser mask projection system and diode-pumped solid state (DPSS) laser beam scanning system. Well-defined deep microtrenches without crack formations on a fused silica glass plate were fabricated by LIBWE method with the UV lasers. We have demonstrated the micro- fabrication of pits-array and patterned grating on the surface of silica glass plates by LIBWE method at 248 nm and 266 nm with dye solutions. The two new systems allow us to use rapid prototyping of high precision surface microfabrication of silica glass as laser direct-write processing.