Soft-Lithographical Fabrication of Three-dimensional Photonic Crystals in the Optical Regime

Abstract

This dissertation describes several projects to realize low-cost and high-quality three-dimensional (3D) microfabrication using non-photolithographic techniques for layer-by-layer photonic crystals. Low-cost, efficient 3D microfabrication is a demanding technique not only for 3D photonic crystals but also for all other scientific areas, since it may create new functionalities beyond the limit of planar structures. However, a novel 3D microfabrication technique for photonic crystals implies the development of a complete set of sub-techniques for basic layer-by-layer stacking, inter-layer alignment, and material conversion. One of the conventional soft lithographic techniques, called microtransfer molding (μTM), was developed by the Whitesides group in 1996. Although μTM technique potentially has a number of advantages to overcome the limit of conventional photolithographic techniques in building up 3D microstructures, it has not been studied intensively after its demonstration. This is mainly because of technical challenges in the nature of layer-by-layer fabrication, such as the demand of very high yield in fabrication. After two years of study on conventional μTM, We have developed an advanced microtransfer molding technique, called two-polymer microtransfer molding (2P-μTM) that shows an extremely high yield in layer-by-layer microfabrication sufficient to produce highly layered microstructures. The use of two different photo-curable prepolymers, a filler and an adhesive, allows for fabrication of layered microstructures without thin films between layers. The capabilities of 2P-μTM are demonstrated by the fabrication of a wide-area 12-layer microstructure with high structural fidelity. Second, we also had to develop an alignment technique. We studied the 1st-order diffracted moire fringes of transparent multilayered structures comprised of irregularly deformed periodic patterns. By a comparison study of the diffracted moire fringe pattern and detailed microscopy of the structure, we show that the diffracted moire fringe can be used as a nondestructive tool to analyze the alignment of multilayered structures. We demonstrate the alignment method for the case of layer-by-layer microstructures using soft lithography. The alignment method yields high contrast of fringes even when the materials being aligned have very weak contrasts. The imaging method of diffracted moire fringes is a versatile visual tool for the microfabrication of transparent deformable microstructures in layer-by-layer fashion. Third, we developed several methods to convert a polymer template to dielectric or metallic structures, for instance, metallic infiltration using electrodeposition, metallic coating using sputter deposition, dielectric infiltration using titania nano-slurry, and dielectric coating using atomic layer deposition of Titania. By several different developed techniques, high quality photonic crystals have been successfully fabricated; however, I will focus on a line of techniques to reach metallic photonic crystals in this dissertation since they are completely characterized at this moment. In addition to the attempts for photonic crystal fabrication, our non-photolithographic technique is applied for other photonic applications such as small optical waveguides whose diameter is comparable to the wavelength of guided light. Although, as guiding medium, polymers have tremendous potential because of their enormous variation in optical, chemical and mechanical properties, their application for optical waveguides is limited in conventional photolithography. By 2P-μTM, we achieve low cost, high yield, high fidelity, and tailorable fabrication of small waveguides. Embedded semiconductor quantum-dots and grating couplers are used for efficient internal and external light source, respectively.