Fabrication of cantilevered near-field probe arrays using MEMS technology

This paper describes fabrication of cantilevered near-field probe arrays using MEMS technologies on glass wafers, which can be coupled to on-chip detector arrays. The probe arrays are formed by dicing of glass wafers, followed by a two-step etch process. Arrays of up to 10 2-cm long probes at 450 μm center-to-center spacing and approximately 800 nm tips have been demonstrated. The measured loss coefficients vary from 10 to 1 dB/cm depending on etch duration. The presented process enables fabrication of large arrays of variable center-to-center spacing, promising to simplify integration with CMOS photoreceivers arrays for future high-density data storage/retrieval.