Abstract

The objective of the research thesis entitled “Design and fabrication of photonic and
metamaterial micro/nano structures through phase engineered interference lithography
for suitable applications” is to develop a cost-effective, large area and single step optical
fabrication technique for the realization of photonic and metamaterial micro/nano structures
applicable in understanding the complex photonic patterns in the nature; efficient and
miniaturized optical devices in all optical information processing; and electromagnetic energy
trapping for solar energy harvesting.

Nature has been a motivation for advanced research in the field of photonics for
decades. Periodic patterns present in the wings of certain species of butterfly and in the feathers
of peacock reveal the presence of periodic wavelength scale artificially engineered building
blocks as dielectric contrasts called photonic crystals (PhCs). PhCs generate, control, detect,
switch, amplify, guide and overall manipulate electromagnetic wave in a similar manner to
crystals present in semiconductors that controls electrons. This optical analogue opens up new
directions in bio-sensing, lasing and electromagnetic energy trapping through the manipulation
of light in these structures. Since last decade, metamaterial structures have come up with unique
physical properties leading to tremendous applications that are unachievable with conventional
materials. These exotic properties of this material is mostly structure, design, arrangement and
material dependent. Periodic or random sub-wavelength features made up of advanced
materials in these structures change the energy and momentum of electromagnetic wave in
these structures leading to un-natural and effective possibilities with the electromagnetic wave
such as negative refraction, diffraction limited imaging, optical cloaking, super chirality etc..

In this thesis, a dynamically reconfigurable holographic lithography technique based

on optical phase engineering of multiple plane beams have been employed as a scalable design
and fabrication approach for large area realization of various artificial dielectric micro/nano
periodic structures for light manipulation. The MATLAB computed phase profiles have been
electronically fed to a phase only spatial light modulator (SLM) to generate multiple beams out
of the incident ultraviolet laser. A modified reflection geometry through multi-mirrors have
been demonstrated for the first time in contrary to the conventional 4f optical setup followed
by the phase engineering technique available so far to realize scale down nano photonic
structures. Diverse translational, rotational periodic, complex photonic and metamaterial
structures such as functional metamaterial basis, translational periodic, complex photonic
quasi-crystallographic, bio-mimetic and gradient index, 3D woodpile, 3D helical photonic
structures with tunable features scalable from tens of micrometer to hundreds of nanometer
scale have been realized for several applications as discussed in the preceding sections.
Fabricated photonic structures are characterized for surface analysis and study of optical
properties through SEM, AFM, Optical profilometer and UV-VIS-NIR spectrometer.

Finite difference time domain (FDTD) based simulation studies have been carried out
on the optical properties of the realized structures using Lumerical solutions “FDTD solutions”
module to study numerous applications. The realized helical photonic structures have shown
complete bandgap and can be applicable as optical filters, refractive index sensors and dichroic
broadband circular polarizer upon transferring them to a suitable dielectric or metal. We have
realized 3D woodpile submicrometer scale periodic structures through this fabrication
technique and studied its optical properties and bandgap via FDTD simulation to propose its
applications as optical filters that may find application in narrow band telecommunication and
broadband NIR filters.

The realized structure on positive photoresist with 4 numbers of axial layers is shown
to have a bandgap that can further be enhanced as a complete gap for certain frequency with
more number of added layers and can find application in red-blue-green (RGB) color filters.
Further, the biomimetic gradient index photonic structures are proposed to show antireflection
properties that can find application as broadband and broad angle anti-reflector in photonic
structures. The realized gradient index photonic structure array based planar microlens have
been demonstrated to show polarization independent multi imaging for the visible light. A
compact and unified design based on doughnut shape plasmonic metamaterial structures have
been studied as a broadband absorber and thermal emitter. The research contributions are
published in numerous reputed optics journals such as optics letters, applied optics, journal of
applied physics and journal of optics and few more works are communicated.