Silicon Metalens Fabrication from Electron Beam to UV-Nanoimprint Lithography

This study presents the design and manufacture of metasurface lenses optimized for focusing light with 1.55 mu m wavelength. The lenses are fabricated on silicon substrates using electron beam lithography, ultraviolet-nanoimprint lithography and cryogenic deep reactive-ion etching techniques. The designed metasurface makes use of the geometrical phase principle and consists of rectangular pillars with target dimensions of height h = 1200 nm, width w = 230 nm, length l = 354 nm and periodicity p = 835 nm. The simulated efficiency of the lens is 60%, while the master lenses obtained by using electron beam lithography are found to have an efficiency of 45%. The lenses subsequently fabricated via nanoimprint are characterized by an efficiency of 6%; the low efficiency is mainly attributed to the rounding of the rectangular nanostructures during the pattern transfer processes from the resist to silicon due to the presence of a thicker residual layer.

Automated summary

This study focused on the design and manufacture of metasurface lenses optimized for focusing light with 1.55 mu m wavelength. The lenses were fabricated using electron beam lithography, ultraviolet-nanoimprint lithography and cryogenic deep reactive-ion etching techniques. While the simulated efficiency of the lens was 60%, the actual efficiency of the fabricated lenses was found to be lower due to rounding of the rectangular nanostructures during the pattern transfer processes.