Greetings element 14 community,
I work as a graduate student at the university of toronto. I am working on making an autoamted photonic chip testing station. I currently am solving the problem of aliging a fiber array to an array of grating couplers. One major issue with this is the possability of landing the fiber tips onto the chip (bad news bears). So to alliviate this problem we are looking into some sort of "height" sensor to detect the distance between the fiber tips (built into a fiber array) and the top of the chip.
I have looked into many sensor types but can not find one that meets all of my needs which are:
- Sub micron accuracy... The ideal coupling distance from fiber tip to coupler is 5-10um. So we will need a measuremnt of for example 5.3um needing 0.X accuracy
- Range of 10um ie, the sensor will work form 0um from chip to 10um from chip (or larger, this is a minimum requirement)
- The chips we make on average are 4x6mm and made of silicon materials. (passive structures are the most common) so the sensor must be able to detct said materials. Thickness is variable depending on what structurs are layed out. but will always be <1mm
- Spot size small enough to detect features on top of the cip, waveguides etc.
Some things I have looked into so far are the E2C - EDA series capacative sensors by OMRON. However as far as I can tell this sensor can not detect objects that are the size of my chip.
I have also considered using an optical sensor but so far the sizes of the probe have been a problem. In order for the system to work I need the probe to sit on top of the Fiber Array which is a rectangle of about 13mm long and has a width depending on how many fibers you include ~ 4-6mm.
My question is thus:
"Can you suggest any sensor that would be able to meet all of my needs?"
Thank you,
Benjamin Taylor (University of Toronto)
