FABRICATION OF COLOR FILTER ARRAYS FOR SOLID-STATE IMAGERS BY LASER INDUCED DYE DIFFUSION INTO POLYMERS.

A technique has been developed for the fabrication of color-filter arrays to be used in conjunction with solid-state imaging devices, which will provide three-color image information from a single sensor. The fabrication technique employs the diffusion of a sublimed dye film into a base polymer receiving layer by exposure to a focused pulsed laser beam. The undiffused dye film is subsequently removed by a solvent leaving only the desired dye-in polymer color filter pattern. The shape, size, and position of the color filter is determined by the scanning laser. Color filters, 10 micron in size, of yellow, magenta, cyan, red, green, and blue dyes have been fabricated with good uniformity and edge sharpness.