Driven by the demand of miniaturized and highly integrated functionalities in the area of photonics and photonic circuits, the metal or plasmon optics has become a promising method for manipulating light at the nanometer scale. Especially the application of periodic sub wavelength hole structures within an opaque metal film on a dielectric substrate holds many advantages for the realization of optical filters, since the variation of the hole diameter and the periodicity allows a selective filter response. This paper is concerned with the modeling, fabrication and characterization of a sub wavelength hole array for surface plasmon enhanced transmission of light [1]. The theoretical backgrounds as well as the basics of the simulation by Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) are described for the target structure with a hole diameter of 180 nm and a periodicity of 400 nm. By using a double-molding technology via nanoimprint lithography the fabrication of this sub wavelength hole array with a peak wavelength of 470 nm and full width at half maximum of 50 nm from a silicon nanopillar master is demonstrated. In order to ensure the dimensional stability of the molded structures, characterization was consequently done by means of a self made non-contact mode atomic force microscope.

Date Published: 5 March 2013
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8613, Advanced Fabrication Technologies for Micro/Nano Optics and Photonics VI, 86131N (5 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2014273

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8613:
Advanced Fabrication Technologies for Micro/Nano Optics and Photonics VI
Georg von Freymann; Winston V. Schoenfeld; Raymond C. Rumpf, Editor(s)