We report a new simple and inexpensive sub-micrometer two dimensional patterning technique. This technique combines a use of a photomask featured with self-organized particles in the micro- to nano-meter size range and a photoresist-covered substrate. The photomask was prepared by depositing monodispersed silicon dioxide (SiO(2))- or polystyrene- spheres on a quartz substrate to form a close-packed pattern. The patterning technique can be realized in two configurations: a hard-contact mode or a soft-contact mode. In the first configuration, each sphere acts as a micro ball-lens that focuses light and exposes the photoresist underneath the sphere. The developed pattern therefore reproduces exactly the same spatial arrangement as the close-packed spheres but with a feature size of developed hole smaller than the diameter of the sphere. In the soft-contact mode, an air gap of few micrometers thick is introduced between the 2D array of self-organized spheres and the photoresist-covered substrate. In this case, a phase mask behavior is obtained which results in an exposure area with a lattice period being half of the sphere diameter. A 2D lattice structure with period and feature size of a developed hole as small as 750 nm and 420 nm, respectively, was realized in this configuration. We further applied this technique to host the deposition of organic films into the 2D nanostructure and demonstrated the realization of green and red nano-structured OLEDs.
We study theoretically the enhancement of the light extraction from an OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) with nanoair-bubbles embedded inside a glass substrate. Due to such a nanostructure inside the substrate, the critical angle which limits the light extraction outside the substrate from the OLED is increased. The theoretical results show that the nanoair bubbles near by the substrate surface can improve the efficiency of the light extraction by 7%. Such a substrate may also be suitable for photovoltaic cells or display screens.
Despite its attractive features, Congruent-melted Lithium Niobate (CLN) suffers from Photo-Refractive Damage (PRD). This light-induced refractive-index change hampers the use of CLN when high-power densities are in play, a typical regime in integrated optics. The resistance to PRD can be largely improved by doping the lithium-niobate substrates with magnesium oxide. However, the fabrication of waveguides on MgO-doped substrates is not as effective as for CLN: either the resistance to PRD is strongly reduced by the waveguide fabrication process (as it happens in Ti-indiffused waveguides) or the nonlinear conversion efficiency is lowered (as it occurs in annealed-proton exchange). Here we fabricate, for the first time, waveguides starting from MgO-doped substrates using the Soft-Proton Exchange (SPE) technique and we show that this third way represents a promising alternative. We demonstrate that SPE allows to produce refractive-index profiles almost identical to those produced on CLN without reducing the nonlinearity in the substrate. We also prove that the SPE does not affect substantially the resistance to PRD. Since the fabrication recipe is identical between CLN and MgO-doped substrates, we believe that SPE might outperform standard techniques to fabricate robust and efficient waveguides for high-intensity-beam confinement.
The optical properties of two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal (PhC) slabs based on self-assembled monolayer of dielectric microspheres are studied. The in-plane transmission spectra of 2D array of dielectric spheres with triangular lattice are investigated using the finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) method. The structures studied are monolayer of dielectric spheres infiltrated with air ('opals') and air spheres infiltrated with dielectric material ('inverse opals'), with glass substrate sustaining the monolayer of spheres. The transmission spectra are calculated for different values of refractive index contrasts between the spheres and the infiltrated material and for different values of filling fractions (compactness of the spheres). As the refractive index is varied, compact spheres are assumed; and as the filling fraction is varied, the refractive index of the dielectric spheres or the dielectric matrix is fixed to be 2.5. For compact opal structure on glass substrate, a narrow photonic band gap (PBG) is observed in the transmission spectra for dielectric spheres with refractive index higher than around 1.9. When the refractive index is fixed at 2.5, the PBG is observed for more compact spherical arrangement and disappears for more separated spheres. While for inverse opal structure on glass substrate, using non-compact spheres enlarges the width of PBG which is not observed for compact spherical arrangement. The application of the study is to realize organic PhC microcavity laser.
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