Fabrication of polymer photonic crystal slabs using nanoimprint lithography

Abstract

We applied the thermal nanoimprint lithography to replicate two-dimensional photonic crystal slabs having line defected waveguides with a triangular array of air-holes on polymers. The photonic band gap structures, calculated by the plane wave expansion technique, show that 2-D polystyrene photonic crystal slabs have a complete small photonic band gaps between 0.49 and 0.51 for the TE-like modes. The fabrication process of 2-D polystyrene photonic crystal slabs is reported. The dimensions of the fabricated line defected waveguide slab structures with a triangular array of air-holes correspond well to those of the proposed structures. The nanoimprinted polymer photonic crystal slabs will be attractive candidates for the implementations of ultra-compact low cost photonic crystal integrated circuits. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.