the microlens array reported is for enhanced optical coupling of near ir photons into the edges of the rockwell solid-state photomultiplier (sspm). the edge-illumination is necessary to achieve the required quantum efficiency of near ir photons in the sspm, a device which is capable of photon counting. sspm detection requires a method of highly efficient optical coupling to the gain medium to concentrate light with a 100 percent fill factor where lenslets are centered with a precise 0.2 mu m accuracy. the microlens array is designed for a center wavelength of 1.3 mu m, 1975 mu m pixel dimension and a speed of f/4, which results in the array being nearly diffraction limited. the smallest feature size is 0.9 mu m for the 8-phase level devices. from this design, the authors have successfully fabricated an 8-phase-level sspm microlens array which demonstrates a 0.2 mu m alignment accuracy among all three mask levels. sem studies of the microlens show a high-quality surface finish and near vertical sidewalls