MICROSTRUCTURE ARRAYS AND METHODS FOR THE FABRICATION THEREOF
A method is provided for fabricating smoothly-curved microstructures (12, 14, 16) such as microlenses on a substrate (18) and certain unique microstructures (12, 14, 16) and microstructure arrays (10) obtained through use of such techniques are also provided. The substrate (18) may be smoothly-curved and the bases of the microstructures (12, 14, 16) may have a variety of shapes. The method takes advantage of the surface tension of a liquid to form droplets having a desired shape over high surface energy portions or area of the substrate, which substrate has been previously patterned to have areas with surface energies which are above and below, respectively, the surface tension of a liquid deposited to form the droplets. The formed droplets may then be cured to create the desired microstructures.