Scalable shape-controlled fabrication of curved microstructures using a femtosecond laser wet-etching process

Materials with curvilinear surface microstructures are highly desirable for micro-optical and biomedical devices. However, realization of such devices efficiently remains technically challenging. This paper demonstrates a facile and flexible method to fabricate curvilinear microstructures with controllable shapes and dimensions. The method composes of femtosecond laser exposures and chemical etching process with the hydrofluoric acid solutions. By fixed-point and step-in laser irradiations followed by the chemical treatments, concave microstructures with different profiles such as spherical, conical, bell-like and parabola were fabricated on silica glasses. The convex structures were replicated on polymers by the casting replication process. In this work, we used this technique to fabricate high-quality microlens arrays and high-aspect-ratio microwells which can be used in 3D cell culture. This approach offers several advantages such as high-efficient, scalable shape-controllable and easy manipulations. - Highlights: • We demonstrate a flexible method to fabricate curvilinear microstructures. • This method composes of femtosecond laser exposures and chemical etching process. • Concave microstructures with different profiles were fabricated on silica glasses. • High-quality microlens arrays and high-aspect-ratio microwells were fabricated