Abstract. Grayscale lithography is a widely known but underutilized microfabrication technique for creating three-dimensional (3-D) microstructures in photoresist. One of the hurdles for its widespread use is that developing the grayscale photolithography masks can be time-consuming and costly since it often requires an iterative process, especially for complex geometries. We discuss the use of PROLITH, a lithography simulation tool, to predict 3-D photoresist profiles from grayscale mask designs. Several examples of optical microsystems and microelectromechanical systems where PROLITH was used to validate the mask design prior to implementation in the microfabrication process are presented. In all examples, PROLITH was able to accurately and quantitatively predict resist profiles, which reduced both design time and the number of trial photomasks, effectively reducing the cost of component fabrication.

中文翻译：

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使用灰度光刻技术设计、模拟和制造三维微系统组件

摘要。灰度光刻是一种广为人知但未被充分利用的微细加工技术，用于在光刻胶中创建三维 (3-D) 微结构。其广泛使用的障碍之一是开发灰度光刻掩模可能既耗时又昂贵，因为它通常需要迭代过程，特别是对于复杂的几何形状。我们讨论了使用 PROLITH（一种光刻模拟工具）从灰度掩模设计中预测 3-D 光刻胶轮廓。介绍了几个光学微系统和微机电系统示例，其中 PROLITH 用于在微加工过程中实施之前验证掩模设计。在所有示例中，PROLITH 都能够准确、定量地预测抗蚀剂轮廓，从而减少了设计时间和试用光掩模的数量，