Interference of four umbrellalike beams by a diffractive beam splitter for fabrication of two-dimensional square and trigonal lattices

Polarization control in flexible interference lithography for nano-patterning of different photonic structures with optimized contrast

Half-wave plates were introduced into an interference-lithography scheme consisting of three fibers that were arranged into a rectangular triangle. Such a flexible and compact geometry allows convenient tuning of the polarizations of both the UV laser source and each branch arm. This not only enables optimization of the contrast of the produced photonic structures with expected square lattices, but also multiplies the nano-patterning functions of a fixed design of fiber-based interference lithography. The patterns of the photonic structures can be thus tuned simply by rotating a half-wave plate.

Fiber-based flexible interference lithography for photonic nanopatterning

Flexible interference lithography using fibers as laser beam splitting and delivering system is demonstrated. A laser beam at 325 nm is used as the ultraviolet light source. Fiber bundles consisting of two, three, or four optical fibers have been utilized for the fabrication of two-dimensional photonic structures with different lattice configurations and different periods. The effective area of the fabricated waveguide grating structures is in the scale of centimeters in diameter with excellent homogeneity, which has much space for further improvement. This flexible interference lithography technique enables simple, compact, and efficient fabrication of photonic structures.

Polycarbonate as an elasto-plastic material model for simulation of the microstructure hot imprint process

The thermal imprint process of polymer micro-patterning is widely applied in areas such as manufacturing of optical parts, solar energy, bio-mechanical devices and chemical chips. Polycarbonate (PC), as an amorphous polymer, is often used in thermoforming processes because of its good replication characteristics. In order to obtain replicas of the best quality, the imprint parameters (e.g., pressure, temperature, time, etc.) must be determined. Therefore finite element model of the hot imprint process of lamellar periodical microstructure into PC has been created using COMSOL Multiphysics. The mathematical model of the hot imprint process includes three steps: heating, imprinting and demolding. The material properties of amorphous PC strongly depend on the imprint temperature and loading pressure. Polycarbonate was modelled as an elasto-plastic material, since it was analyzed below the glass transition temperature. The hot imprint model was solved using the heat transfer and the solid stress-strain application modes with thermal contact problem between the mold and polycarbonate. It was used for the evaluation of temperature and stress distributions in the polycarbonate during the hot imprint process. The quality of the replica, by means of lands filling ratio, was determined as well.

Dual-negative refraction in photonic crystals with hexagonal lattices

We present a dual-negative refraction effect based on the overlapping bands in a two-dimensional triangular photonic crystal formed by holographic lithography. Under certain conditions, one incident plane wave launched into this photonic crystal can be dispersed into two negative refracted waves at the same frequency and the same perpendicular polarization state with different phase velocities and group velocities. We find that this dual-negative refraction behavior can be easily manipulated by adjusting the incident angle, the frequency of incident wave and the filling ratio of the PhC. This special effect can be applied to realize wave-front division and optical interference in optical holography. Based on this effect, a double focusing imaging phenomenon has been achieved by the PhC slab. These unique features may show great impacts on both fundamental physics and optical device applications.

Sensor for monitoring the vibration of a laser beam based on holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystal films

A continuous multiple exposure diffraction grating (CMEDG) is fabricated holographically on polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) films using two-beam interference with multiple exposures. The grating is fabricated by exposing a PDLC film to 18 repeated exposure/non-exposure cycles with an angular step of ~10°/10° while it revolves a circle on a rotation stage. The structure of the sample thus formed is analyzed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and shows arc-ripples around the center. From the diffraction patterns of the formed grating obtained using a normally incident laser beam, some or all of the 18 recorded arc beams can be reconstructed, as determined by the probing location. Thus, it can be applied for use as a beam-vibration sensor for a laser.

Binary diffractive beam splitters with arbitrary diffraction angles

Diffractive optical beam splitters designed with iterative Fourier transform type algorithms can produce only certain diffraction angles given by the spatial frequencies used for the computations, which are multiples of a certain base spatial frequency. We have developed a design algorithm that overcomes this limitation and can be used to compute binary diffractive elements with arbitrary diffraction angles. The simulated and experimentally measured properties of optical elements producing beam arrays in circular arrangements are presented and discussed.

Holographic design and band gap evolution of photonic crystals formed with five-beam symmetric umbrella configuration

We propose a holographic design of five-beam symmetric umbrella configuration, where there are a central beam and four ambient beams symmetrically scattered around the central one with the same apex angle, for fabrication of three-dimensional photonic crystals with tetragonal or cubic symmetries, and systematically analyzed the band gap properties of resultant photonic crystals when the apex angle is continuously increased. Our calculations reveal that large complete photonic band gaps exist in a wide range of apex angle for a relatively low refractive index contrast. Specifically, the face-centered cubic structure with a relative band gap of 25.1% for epsilon = 11.9 can be obtained with this recording geometry conveniently where all the beams are incident from the same half-space. These results will provide us with more understanding of this important recording geometry and give guidelines to its use in experiments.