Sustainable Fabrication of Glass Nanostructures Using Infrared Transparent Mold Assisted by CO2 Laser Scanning Irradiation

Abstract

Direct thermal imprinting of nanostructures on glass substrates is reliable when manufacturing net-shaped glass devices with various surface functions. However, several problems are recognized, including a long thermal cycle, tedious optimization, difficulties in ensuring high level replication fidelity, and unnecessary thermal deformation of the glass substrate. Here, we describe a more sustainable and energy efficient method for direct thermal imprinting of nanostructures onto glass substrates; we use silicon mold transparent to infrared between 2.5 and 25 μm in wavelength combined with CO2 laser scanning irradiation. The glass strongly absorbed the 10.6 μm wavelength irradiation, triggering substantial heating of a thin layer on the glass surface, which significantly enhanced the filling of pressed glass material into nanostructured silicon mold cavities. For comparison, we conducted conventional direct glass thermal imprinting experiments, further emphasizing the advantages of our new method, which outperformed conventional methods. The thermal mass cycle was shorter and the imprint pattern quality and yield, higher. Our method is sustainable, allowing more rapid scalable fabrication of glass nanostructures using less energy without sacrificing the quality and productivity of the fabricated devices.

Massively parallel direct writing of nanoapertures using multi-optical probes and super-resolution near-fields

“…Therefore, in this study, we performed massively parallel direct-writing using a glass Fresnel zone plate (FZP) array as an ultra-precision far-field micro-optical system. A multi-optical probe system was fabricated through CO 2 laser-assisted glass imprinting, as proposed in our previous study 29 . Furthermore, we developed a multi-layered PCM using antimony selenide (Sb 65 Se 35 ) and zinc sulfide-silicon dioxide (ZnS-SiO 2 ) with a super-resolution near-field effect.…”