Parallel Fabrication of Photonic Crystals: Towards Photonic Areas Lithographically Mapped (PALM) Devices

这项研究的目的是设计一种新的基于光子晶体的光电子电路制造技术，可以同时制造整个器件晶片。光子晶体是最近发现的一种结构，它具有以前所未有的精度引导和控制光的潜力，但这些晶体的制造需要每个元素的单独定义(通常是硅衬底上的~300 nm空洞)。所提出的方法是使用全息多次曝光光刻或聚苯乙烯球体的自对准模板来平行形成光子晶体阵列。这将使装满器件的晶片能够并行形成，就像现在制造集成电路和激光器一样。虽然这些方法失去了一些灵活性，但这些光子晶体的许多新功能仍然存在。实现一种实用的、可并行制造光子晶体光波电路的方法将把它们从科学上的好奇心转变为一种商业技术。这些电路满足了电信的许多设备需求，并将导致更有效地使用光纤带宽和更便宜、更快的信息传输。这项技术可以使光子晶体制造在商业上可行，并有助于美国在光电子技术方面的全球竞争力。教育方面的好处包括研究生的实践培训和直接的课堂传播。此外，这项激动人心的技术的实验室演示也将是一种特殊的招聘工具，可以吸引不确定专业的本科生或不确定自己感兴趣的领域的研究生进入电气工程和光电子学领域。

The objective of this research is to devise novel fabrication technology for optoelectronic circuits based on photonic crystals which can produce entire wafers of devices simultaneously. Photonic crystals are recently discovered structures which offer the potential to guide and control light with unprecedented precision, but fabrication of these crystals has required the individual definition of each element (typically a ~300nm hole in a Si substrate). The proposed approach is to use either holographic multi-exposure lithography, or self-aligned templating of polystyrene spheres, to form arrays of photonic crystals in parallel. This will allow wafers full of devices to be formed in parallel, just as integrated circuits and lasers are fabricated now. Although some flexibility is lost with these methods, many of the novel capabilities of these photonic crystals are still available. Realization of a practical, parallelizable way to fabricate photonic crystal lightwave circuits will transform them from a scientific curiosity into a commercial technique. These circuits address many of the device needs of telecommunications and will lead to more efficient use of fiber bandwidth and cheaper and faster information transfer. This technology can make photonic crystal manufacturing commercially feasible and contribute to the United States' global competitiveness in optoelectronics technology. The educational benefits include hands-on graduate student training and direct classroom dissemination. In addition, laboratory demonstrations of this exciting technology will also be an exceptional recruiting tool in attracting undergraduates unsure of their major, or graduate students unsure of their area of interest, to the fields of Electrical Engineering and optoelectronics.