Align-and-shine photolithography

At the beginning of 2009, our group has introduced a new technique that allows fabrication of photolithographic patterns on the cleaved end of an optical fibre: the align-and-shine photolithography technique (see A. Petrusis et al., align-and-shine technique for series production of photolithography patterns on optical fibres, J. Micromech. Microeng. 19, 047001, 2009). Align-and-shine photolithography combines standard optical lithography with imagebased active fibre alignment processes. The technique adapts well to series production, opening the way to batch fabrication of fibre-top devices (D. Iannuzzi et al., Monolithic fibre-top cantilever for critical environments and standard applications, Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 053501, 2006) and all other devices that rely on suitable machining of engineered parts on the tip of a fibre. In this paper we review our results and briefly discuss its potential applications.