Redefine optical devices´ integration and manufacturing through nano-engineering

Summary form only given. Optical industries are 30-year behind semiconductor industry. Conventional optical devices such as polarizers, waveplates, beam-splitters, reflectors, filters and lenses, are all manufactured through different scattered and incompatible design and manufacturing platforms, which make the integration and miniaturization impossible. With recent advance of nanotechnology, it becomes possible to manufacture optical nano-structures with high precision, high throughput/volume, and low cost. Based on this, we could redefine each fundamental optical device function and associated manufacturing method through nano-engineering. This leads to a new path for optical integration. A nano-manufacturing platform based on wafer level nano-replication with mold and nano-pattern transfer by nano-lithography is reported here. The nano-replication process, which based on imprinting a single-layer spin-coated UV curable resist, achieved excellent nano-patterning fidelity and on-wafer uniformity with high-throughput. Nano-optic devices, such as quarter wave plates and polarizers, were manufactured with the nano-manufacturing platform. Excellent wafer level performance and yield were achieved. The developed technology is suitable for high-throughput and low cost manufacturing needs for commercializing nano-structure based optical devices and integrated optical devices. In the past three years, we have processed more than 1000 4"-in-dia wafers for nano-optic polarizers and waveplates by using the described nano-manufacturing technology. Statistically, we have achieved nano-replication wafer throughput of 20 wafers/hour. For both nano-optic polarizer and waveplate wafers, we have achieved average on-wafer optical yield of 80%, and the fabrication cost was estimated to be about $0.01/mm² with a 4" in-dia wafer processing line. The fabrication cost is at least 2 to 10 times lower than existing technologies for making similar polarizers (e.g., Polarcor^™ or CuPo^™) and waveplates (e.g., quartz waveplates or polymer sandwiched waveplates). Various integrated nano-optical devices were also fabricated and discussed.