Abstract
IDT (Interdigitated Electrodes or Transducers) fabricated Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW)-based devices have been popularly used in microfluidic applications. The mask-based photolithography system is commonly used for fabricating IDTs on SAW devices. But the process does not provide much freedom for changing the design, once the mask is made. On a different note, Lithium Niobate (LiNbO3)is very fragile and brittle which can be broken or can induce stress that may impact the piezoelectric properties due to hard contact of the Chromium mask during UV exposure. A novel maskless photolithography process is introduced for such devices to mitigate these limitations. In terms of cost, this maskless approach is cheaper than creating a new mask each time for a change in design parameters. This process is also suitable for the “lift-off” and “etching” techniques regardless of “Bright-field” or “Dark-field” masks with the same computer-aided drawing (CAD). In this study, the dosage rate has been estimated for the maskless process by converting the dosage parameters from the masked photolithography process. Finally, the devices made by the maskless photolithography process have been characterized with a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), and the results are validated through comparison with the conventional mask-based photolithography process.
